


Her Favorite Students

by patrician_lurker



Category: RWBY
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Glynda adopts team JNPR in spirit, Glynda's personal life is a mess, Hurt/Comfort in chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26561533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrician_lurker/pseuds/patrician_lurker
Summary: It's no secret that, despite their best efforts, teachers play favorites. Ozpin has RWBY, Oobleck has CFVY, and Peach has CRDL. But for Glynda Goodwitch, admitting to favoritism didn't befit her image. Still, how did such a strict, no-nonsense teacher end up favoring Beacon's most incompetent leader, a berserker with more passion than sense, a repressed boy who cooks better than he calms his team down, and an Invincible Girl who can't assert herself? Well, it all started with the candy bowl on her desk...(Glynda POV, two-shot set during V1-V3)
Relationships: Glynda Goodwitch & Team JNPR
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	1. i. first semester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, this fic is canon to all the other RWBY fics I'm writing.
> 
> 行くぞ!

This isn't how things were supposed to happen!

It was a few weeks into the start of the first semester. Glynda was staring at the candy bowl on her desk, a recent addition to her office, a suggestion of both Professor Port and Professor Greene (which reminded Glynda that she _needed_ to have that talk to Port about keeping his doors open during consultations, lest they get _another_ lawsuit, as well as reminding Ann that her little scroll security patch war with Miss Rose was a gigantic waste of resources). Both assured, nay, _promised_ her that it was a surefire way to gain brownie points with the students – not that Glynda needed nor wanted it, to be honest, but considering she decided to quit the smoking habit out of fear it would ruin her teaching voice, she needed _some_ way to combat the years of bad smoking habits she developed. So, at the beginning of the semester, out went the air fresheners, baking soda, and vinegar, and in came the bowl of candy filled with SCC (Schnee Candy Company) lollipops and gum ("guaranteed to give you a sugar rush!" a glum Pyrrha Nikos would claim in all the infomercials) for her to snack on whenever the cravings got to her. It was a better thing to chew on, that's for sure!

Her current guests didn't seem to appreciate the gesture, however, as Nora Valkyrie eyed the bowl with suspicion when Glynda pushed the bowl onto her. Her companion, one Jaune Arc, sheepishly took a wad of gum, unwrapped it slowly, and took a bite, and Glynda didn't miss the visible wincing on his face as he chewed on the free gum. _Was it that bad?_

"Black licorice? Who even likes these things?" Jaune whispered, believing it was quiet enough that Glynda wouldn't notice, but Glynda had mastered the art of paying attention at a roomful of noisty students to find the unfortunate person who decided Combat class was a good place to nap. While she didn't have the enhanced senses some Faunus had, she had had years of practice to perfect her perfectly _human_ senses. (No, it wasn't the fact that Jaune Arc had _absolutely no subtlety at all in his body._ )

"Sorry," Nora replied, noticing the steely look that Glynda was throwing Jaune's way. "Ren told me not to accept candy from strangers."

" _Nora_!" Jaune squeaked out in between chewing his Grimm ichor-tasting gum. "We talked about this!"

"I _am_ one of your teachers, Miss Valkyrie." Glynda shrugged off Nora's off-color comment, adjusting the glasses that were resting on the bridge of her nose. What she wouldn't give for a smoke right now! "I would like to think that we have progressed past the 'strangers' aspect of our relationship. And Mr. Arc," Glynda motioned to the leader of JNPR, who was doing his best not to gag at the gum he was chewing, "there is a bin next to you if the gum isn't to your liking."

Jaune spat out his gum faster than any combat maneuver he had ever attempted in Combat class. Maybe that was a way to improve his combat performance… something to take note of for later.

"For what it's worth, Mr. Arc, the candy bowl is a work in progress." Glynda comforted the young man, who looked mortified at having to spit out free food from one of his teachers. "You were actually the first student to take the gum, surprisingly. Everyone else was mortified by the things. I'm not sure why, as I am quite fond of them…"

"They just don't have 'em where I lived, I guess…" Jaune laughed, scratching the back of his head, and forcing his best goofy smile, the kind that Glynda knew only worked on skilled but clueless young huntsmen and huntresses with a tendency to fall for oblivious idiots. (She _really_ did not want to think of Miss Xiao Long's father…) Honestly, with that look on his face, Glynda wondered how someone like him could be a Huntsman. He just lacked… an edge to him that a lot of trained students learned to emit by their first or second year of training in primary combat school. It was almost as if he had _no_ combat training whatsoever before entering Beacon, but that couldn't be the case, wasn't it?

_Well, that's what we're here to find out, aren't we?_

Glynda cleared her throat to capture the young Valkyrie's attention. For her part, Nora had left her room and began wandering around Glynda's office, which, Glynda was proud to say, an exemplar of cleanliness. Unlike most of the teaching assistants and junior professors, who had to share rooms and often divided their workstations by cubicles, Glynda had her own office – not as ostentatious as Ozpin's, of course, but Ozpin _did_ establish all the academies (under a different identity, sure, but it counted, Ozpin would always insist) with his own blood, sweat, tears, and a _lot_ of hot cocoa consumption, and as such demanded an office equally as audacious as his own efforts. Glynda's was far more modest – it was the size of a standard dorm room, for the event that Glynda would have to hold classes for advanced theory classes or remedial classes for students who were lagging behind in class. (Besides, by the time the fourth year rolled around, the student population… dwindled, immensely. Either students decided that the Huntress lifestyle wasn't for them, or they were too busy on missions to attend classes regularly.)

The space of her office proved detrimental for her current purpose, however. Glynda chose not to adorn her office with all the useless baubles her colleagues insisted on having, likes Oobleck's shelves overflowing with books and notes on one side, and a dedicated "coffee brewing workstation" (his words) that resembled a science project more than a place where one brewed coffee, to Port's office being seventy percent Grimm cages, to Greene's resembling a hacker's workstation out of some bad Mistralian cartoon, where people assumed hacking involved nonsensical mashing on a keyboard and virus busting all that other nonsense. Glynda wasn't an expert by any means, but she was sure Ann was making it up as she went along. (Plus, she _really_ needed to drop this vendetta with Miss Rose!)

Glynda's office was different, however, as Glynda prided herself on her minimalism. (One only needed to ignore the absolute _state_ of her apartment.) She kept all her material in a well-worn bookshelf, off to the left side of room, that she had bought when she first became a tenured professor and acquired her current office, as well as a desk and antique chair that she had inherited from her predecessor, positioned against the only open window in the room and facing against the door to her office. (In her earlier years, she had disposed many a cigarette butt outside those very windows before spraying her office with an ungodly amount of air freshener. Didn't want the students smelling _that_.) She had two corner couches, ostensibly for students who would be attending one of her remedial classes – one placed next to the book shelves and other on the opposite end, next to a door that let to her small shower and toilet, and she had procured two small, wooden round tables for said students to use when seated on the couches. She also had two sturdier chairs placed in front of her desk for more personal consultations. She also prided herself on keeping her desk clean, with only her hard-light lamp (courtesy of one James Ironwood), current stack of paperwork and student evaluations occupying the desk, as well as her most recent addition, the candy bowl.

Nora wasn't interested in all the environmental description, however, as she was darting around all the white space in the room, as if trying to find some crevice she could squeeze into. She was peeking behind the corner couches, pulling out random books from the shelves and returning them in the wrong place, tapping her foot on random parts of the floor… Glynda wasn't sure what Nora wanted to achieve, whether it was to point out just how much empty space her room had, or find some secret passageway for the Grimm to invade. Either/or. Glynda had a hard time comprehending the student.

"She's… trying to determine structural weaknesses in your room," Jaune tried to explain, chuckling slightly at his own words. "She did the same for our dorm the first night we moved in."

"You never know where there might be a crack or loose part in the architecture, Jaune! Happened to me and Ren like, five times!" Nora chided her leader from the far end of the room. "One time, the entire barn roof collapsed on us!"

Choosing to ignore the allusions to her past, Glynda cleared her throat again, hoping to get Nora to pay attention, but instead, Glynda spotted the pink haired berserker as she was about to unlock the door to Glynda's small bathroom. That was the last straw for the teacher, as she immediately locked the door shut with her semblance and, with a show of strength she rarely wanted to show off to students, levitated Nora back to her seat by taking hold of Nora's giant warhammer. If the entire situation didn't give her an unending amount of stress, she would have laughed at the absurdity of carrying a student almost by the scruff of her neck like she was an unruly pet.

" _Miss Valkyrie_. Please, behave yourself."

"You got it!"

"Nora, no…"

With the little comedy sketch out of the way, Glynda, who was seated in her antique chair and pondering her life choices, finally got around to her point. "I hope you two understand why you are here."

Jaune immediately stood up straight in attention, for once fixing that dust-damned posture of his. Part of what Glynda always found frustrating with the young Arc was that a lot of his combat flaws came from poor posture – the leader was always hunched over, as if trying to minimize himself as much as possible to avoid inconveniencing the people around him. She also didn't notice the way he was hyperattentive to everyone's slightest movements, and his instincts always seemed to be to defend himself or other people around him. But regardless of his psychology, it always translated into poor combat stances, as the boy barely leveraged his bulk and build in combat against opponents who weren't Cardin Winchester. At least he was getting slightly better at things, no doubt thanks to his partner… and wasn't _that_ another problem she had to address?

"I'm… not sure, actually. Was it for the incident in combat class with Blake's clones, or when Nora tried to sneak into the kitchen pantry, or…?"

"Ooh, was this when I almost tried to break CRDL's legs?"

" _Nora!_ " Jaune squeaked out, _again_. He turned to Glynda, his face one of pure panic. "She means _almost_! It was just a passing thought in her head! You know how Nora can get with a little syrup in her! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! We _totally_ didn't convince her to stop it before she actually swung at them!" Glynda had heard a lot of things on her time, but she didn't think she would be hearing painfully forced laughter today.

Nora leaned in to mime whispering in Jaune's ear, but Glynda could hear every single word. "Jauney, I don't think Glynda's buying it…"

"I can _hear_ you," Glynda uttered through gritted teeth. "And no, it is none of those things, although thank you for telling me about the pantry incident. The cooks were confused about where all the flour and bacon disappeared to."

"So, uh," Jaune replied, visibly confused, "What exactly… did we do?"

"It's more what you _didn_ 't do, honestly." Glynda responded, crossing her arms over her chest. "Are you aware of what Miss Valkyrie has done just now?"

"…she left her seat after you forced her to sit down and is now bouncing on the couch."

"I'm helping!"

(Nora was, in fact, testing the structural integrity of the couch, jumping on it with the full force of her weight to see if it could stand something like, say, falling debris. But Jaune wasn't keen on explaining that to Glynda, because as much as JNPR did their best to explain Nora's thought processes, it was difficult, even at the best of times, especially when the person in question was the no-nonsense shadow headmaster of Beacon. Besides, nothing short of, say, Beacon falling and the infrastructure collapsing all around them would destroy the couch. It was an expensive purchase, after all!)

"This is the problem, Mr. Arc." Glynda began again, after wasting more of her aura to drag the pink-haired girl back to her seat. Somehow Nora managed to _vibrate_ in place, despite being lifted almost literally by the scruff of her neck. Glynda didn't want to think of the physics of it all. "It's been a few weeks, and while I understand that you are all strangers, it is up to you as the leader of the team to reign in your more…" Glynda glanced at Nora, who was pawing at the candy bowl with a disappointed look on her face, "...excitable teammate."

Jaune gave a soft chuckle at that. "Well, Ren says you don't really _control_ Nora, just… aim her at something else for a while and hope for the best. It's worked out so far."

"Not unless you're my couch." Glynda retorted, eyeing the mess Nora had made of her couches from her impromptu stress-testing.

"I'm sure you can bill the school for that!" Jaune replied, the panic in his voice noticeable. "I know Beacon has a dedicated damages budget for when students accidentally damage private property!"

"Those are for when students are out on a mission, Mr. Arc."

"Yes, well, taking care of Nora is like a long-term Village Security mission!"

"I'm surprised you even know what those are when you can't even remember a basic combat sequence."

"I-I've read up on Huntsmen missions before…"

"Now if only you could apply that dedication to other aspects of your Huntsmen training."

Well, _that_ shut Jaune up. Glynda never meant to be harsh to her students, even if she carried around a riding crop and acted the part, but she never believed in lying to them either (which made the whole being part of a secret group to protect Remnant from a shadowy threat a _bit_ uncomfortable for her) and from her perspective, Jaune Arc needed a _lot_ of truth bombs. He only had a few things going for him: a decent set of leadership skills, more aura than the average Huntsman, and a more levelheaded and grounded disposition compared to his peers, but that was outweighed by the many, many, _many,_ deficiencies he had as a huntsman-in-training. And his inability to keep Nora in line was one of them.

"I called you in here not for any single incident, but because _your_ team…" and Glynda placed emphasis on _your_ , which made Jaune take an exaggerated gulp with his throat, "…is party to many… shenanigans." Those were Ozpin's words, really, and Glynda didn't _like_ using it, but there wasn't any other way to describe things like how Nora and Pyrrha managed to threaten team CRDL to back off after the Forever Fall incident. Ann's report was rather clear on that regard, although Glynda didn't _want_ to imagine the visual of CRDL doused in red sap, down to… unmentionable places. She was surprised Pyrrha Nikos, champion of Mistral, 4-time Mistral Regional champion and cover girl for her favorite instant cup noodles could describe… crevices… in such a terrifying tone!

"In any case, how _is_ your relationship with Mr. Winchester and his team?"

Glynda didn't miss the look of shock on Jaune's face, but she dutifully ignored it.

"Well, y'know… it's there." Jaune offered.

"If you say so, Mr. Arc." Glynda hummed. "But… in the hypothetical scenario that something _is_ happening, please do not hesitate to inform your teachers. Trust us, we _do_ want to help as much as possible." She adjusted the glasses resting on the bridge of her nose again and arranged the papers she was holding in her hand, which contained many reports that Ann and Oobleck had compiled regarding their observations of team JNPR, along with many of her own. "Unfortunately, we try not to be involved with the interpersonal dynamics of the students, not unless the students themselves seek our aid. It is part of Beacon's mandate to give students the choice to seek help, after all." She wasn't sure _how_ Port managed it, but if even _Port_ could give _Weiss Schnee_ , of all people, solid advice, then surely Glynda could as well.

"I'll… I'll keep that in mind." The leader offered, rubbing the back of his head again. He _really_ needed to get rid of that habit. "So, uh, was that all you called us in for?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Arc." Glynda finally relaxed and smirked. "I'm sure we have plenty to talk about, but for now, I'm here to inform you that you and your team will be receiving detention for the rocket locker incident."

Jaune groaned into his hands. "I _knew_ they'd figure out it was us…"

Nora, blissfully unaware of the conversation, continued to dig into Glynda's candy bowl and shout-whispered, " _Why isn't there any Sour Patch Grimm?!"_

\---0---

In all honesty, Glynda probably wouldn't have been paying attention to team JNPR if it weren't for Pyrrha Nikos.

She remembered the day that Ozpin informed her that they were somehow getting the Invincible Girl to Beacon as opposed to Haven. She was busy trying to make a dent in the black hole that was her apartment's piles of unfinished cup noodles and piled up laundry, but for all her vaunted Telekinesis, there was simply _too much garbage_ in her place to properly sort through all the mess without expending her Aura reserves. _How could such a small place be this messy?!_

Glynda's apartment was a typical one-bedroom apartment, located around the more upscale parts of the Residential District, and was in a convenient location, sandwiched near the air docks and the commercial district. While the price _was_ steep as a result, and Glynda could just as well stay in the housing provided by Beacon, she was eager to just have a place of her own where she wasn't always at Ozpin's beck and call. Sure, she only got to stay there during the weekends (and that wasn't even a sure thing, as she often stayed over the weekend during especially stressful events like initiation or exams) but the idea of just having a place where she didn't have to worry about _work_ appealed to the disciplinarian. Besides, Glynda certainly had more spending money than most, even if she wasn't _that_ arrogant to try and set up shop in the upper-class districts.

The layout of her apartment was simple: upon entry, you could find her small living room off to the right, which had a small sofa, a glass coffee table, and a projector where she could watch the latest episode of- no, no, Glynda watched the _news_ , thank you very much, she was a self-respecting adult. Once you got past the living room, there was a small kitchen and a dining table for four (one of Glynda's more unfortunate purchases, considering she lived alone) to the right, while off to the left was a bathroom and her bedroom.

As she began to pile up all her dirty clothes into the one hamper she owned (she blamed the fact that she only had time to return to her apartment every weekend, and now she had nothing but one clean tracksuit left to wear), her scroll buzzed with the tell-tale notification for members of the Ozluminati (trademark pending).

♫♫♫ _Be afraid! Living your life, don't give up now, keep moving on_ ♫♫♫ _  
_♫♫♫ _I embrace you again and again and again_ ♫♫♫

(Ozpin always had a flair for the dramatic, and on the nose, Mistralian cartoons. Glynda wondered if Ozpin had a hand in penning some of them.)

Glynda used her Telekinesis to operate her scroll, which was buried under a rubble of laundry, and the ensuing burst of Aura caused the clothes to fly out everywhere. Glynda swore under her breath as she flicked the accept button on the call with her semblance and turned on the speakers, before returning to her task at hand.

"Glynda?" the voice on the other end of the line began. "I have some interesting news for you."

Glynda rolled her eyes. In their world, _interesting_ meant a pain in Glynda's ass. "Ozpin, I am currently off work. We've discussed this in the past: _please_ try not to make a habit of bringing our work back home. Leave it at the office."

The voice on the other end of the line, unmistakably Ozpin's, chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure you're rather busy trying to find a semblance of organization in your home life. I apologize. But this _is_ important news."

Glynda sighed, stacking a pile of unfinished cup noodles into a delicate tower, and willed it to remain upright with her semblance. Why did she have so _many_ of these things? Pyrrha Nikos' (forced) smile on the front of the noodles seemed to be taunting Glynda, as if to tell her that her endeavor was doomed to failure.

"Pyrrha Nikos has chosen to attend Beacon Academy."

Glynda's eyes shot to the scroll with that remark. "Miss Nikos? I'm shocked. What did Leonardo have to say about this?"

"Oh, he's disappointed, obviously, but he has agreed that it may be for the best."

"According to the psychological profiles of potential candidates among the students, she would be the best fit. This _is_ good news, Ozpin." Glynda said, in between attempts of forcing all her unwashed clothes into the lone hamper. The attempt was proving futile, since she had let her laundry pile up for almost three weeks and her hamper could only store roughly a week's worth of clothes. Gods, would she even reach the laundromat in time at this rate?

"I agree, and I knew you had your eye on her as our candidate, hence this call." Ozpin agreed, and made a sound over the line that Glynda knew was him taking a sip of his hot cocoa. Glynda never understood the headmaster's obsession with the damned things – she was more of a tea person herself – but so long as the headmaster didn't try to take advantage of the food budget to procure more hot cocoa…

"I assume you want me to take special interest in her, then?" Glynda asked. "You know I try to avoid engaging in your… blatant favoritism of select students."

"You wound me, Glynda. Was STRQ honestly that bad?"

"I can show you Qrow's bill from their graduation party. He _still_ refuses to pay me back for that one, by the way. That man has a chronic inability to pay for other people's tabs. I still remember the incident with Mr. Wan…"

"Shiro Wan knew what he was getting into, befriending Qrow."

 _That's not the important part!_ Glynda wanted to retort, but she held her tongue and focused her attentions on her small kitchen, which also had a stack of unwashed plates and utensils, along with a pile of takeout that was starting to smell. There were even a few cans of half-finished beer and bottles of wine littered around her dining table, and Glynda cringed at how much of a mess she would have been to have been unable to finish her alcohol. She was just glad her tubs of ice cream were safe in the freezer…

"In any case, I was informing you of her choice because you showed interest during the briefing." Ozpin continued. "Regardless of whether or not she chooses to be part of our organization, we cannot deny that she is a boon for our school, especially since we seem to have a promising crop of students coming in this year."

They certainly did. While Glynda was especially proud of team CFVY's progress as a team, it was a shame that there was nobody on their level that could challenge the team to improve. Glynda constantly worried about that – if they didn't feel the need to compete with a fellow team, how could Coco and her team rise to the challenge when confronted with a difficult situation? Glynda didn't want to send an unprepared team to a dangerous Search and Destroy and lose yet another promising prospect, after all.

"Well, I can certainly hope that her future team is up to par…"

As if to taunt her statement, her tower of noodles collapsed, a possible reminder of her hubris. Glynda sighed and went back to cleaning up the ruins of her apartment.

\---0---

"Sour Patch Grimm?" Pyrrha asked, ruffling through the candy bowl. She was seated on the left-hand chair in front of Glynda's desk.

"It was… a suggestion." Glynda replied, tapping her arms, which were crossed over her chest. "Is there a problem, Miss Nikos?"

"No! No…" Pyrrha quickly course-corrected, dropping the black licorice gum she was eyeing when she noticed Jaune's visible wince every time Pyrrha handled the gum wrappers. She immediately moved to get one of the sour candy treats, unwrapping it delicately (as she was wont to do – Glynda always marveled at the way Pyrrha seemed to do things effortlessly, like she didn't _need_ to do practice for anything) and putting it into her mouth. The look on her face immediately reminded Glynda of that time she caught Pyrrha on an infomercial for Pumpkin Pete's with the most forced smile the teacher had ever seen the Invincible Girl do. Sure, it didn't _stop_ Glynda from trying it out that one time, but there was a reason she stuck to cup noodles and not cereal!

 _These things really_ aren't _good for you!_

"There is a bin, Miss Nikos." Glynda offered, hoping to end the girl's pain.

"I'm fine! Perfectly fine… ha…" Pyrrha replied, all too quickly, even as her face was queasy at the sudden invasion of sourness on her taste buds. Behind her, Nora already had a stockpile of the sour candy in her arms and was busy trying to cram as many of the things in her mouth as humanly possible. "The taste was certainly… unique."

"I don't think Glynda would be stocking up Munch Bars in her candy bowl," Glynda _thought_ she heard Nora utter, but she may have misheard the girl considering the frankly absurd amount of Sour Path Grimm that was lodged in her mouth. For all she knew, Nora could have uttered " _Ozpin wants you to be the Fall Maiden_ " and Glynda wouldn't have been able to tell.

"Nora, they _aren't_ my favorite…" Pyrrha gently chided, but it seemed that nobody believed her, as Nora and Jaune just laughed.

"Yeah, and you don't have that hidden pile under your bed for 'cheat days'. I'd be worried about your favorite chocolate bar if you go through Munch Bars that fast." Jaune added, sitting on the right-hand chair in front of Glynda's desk. He took a glance at Glynda's candy bowl and winced at the sight of the black licorice, and instead reached for one of the lollipops in the bowl. Glynda let out a small hum as Jaune put the candy in his mouth, only to wince at the taste of the things.

"What the- no sugar? Are these sugar-free?" Jaune asked, visibly confounded by the concept of confectionaries that _didn't_ have sugar in it. "Last time I've had one of these was when my dad was trying to quit the smoking habit."

"In any case," a voice cut in from the other end of the room, where Lie Ren was seated on the corner couch, doing nothing to stop Nora, who was now running all over Glynda's room once again to "check for structural integrity defects", whatever that meant, "…it would be best if we focused on the matter at hand."

For once in her life, Glynda admired the young man's willingness to just cut to the chase of the matter. It was true: the candy thing was distracting her far too much! It didn't help that she had spent the better part of a day tracking down a supplier to ship her the things, as for some reason Vale wasn't exactly stocked to the brim with Sour Patch Grimm, seeing as they were a Mistralian product, but if it could hopefully calm Nora down even slightly, Glynda was willing to take the chance.

But anyway, back to the matter at hand! "Well, I hope everyone understands why you were called in here today."

"Oooh." Nora responded to that far too quickly for Glynda's liking. "Was it the red sap incident? The fight at the cafeteria to cover for team RWBY's search for Blakey? The thing in the boy's shower with the butter? Wait, don't tell me! Was it that time Weiss and I bet on the live swordfish duel?"

"I can still hear Blake screaming about the concept of catfish." Jaune added. "Poor Blake…"

"Well, I'm glad you're willing to own up to some of those incidents, as Professor Greene _still_ isn't sure how the butter got there… but no, none of those things." Glynda tilted her head at Jaune's statement, however. "Also, I didn't realize the cafeteria stocked catfish. Some of the Faunus students find them unsettling."

"Well, Blake certainly…" Jaune began to say, but judging from Pyrrha's sudden leg movement and small, pained yelp that Jaune let out, Glynda could tell that Jaune _wasn't_ supposed to say it. "… _is a good friend with no secrets to hide, no sir._ "

Glynda sighed. There really wasn't any need for them to hide Miss Belladonna's big secret, as Glynda was made privy to that a few weeks into the new semester by Ozpin during a routine early morning meeting. Glynda almost didn't notice it too, as she was groggy after marathoning a new season of– it didn't matter. The point was, Glynda was aware of a lot of the students' secrets, the ones they took great pains to hiding, even if she needed to be clued in after the fact by Ozpin. For someone who abhorred paperwork, Ozpin sure was good at sneaking in fraudulent transcripts and faked identity papers past Glynda!

(While Glynda wasn't fond of students keeping their identities a secret, she had to admit that the burden of Blake Belladonna's past meant that it was not as easy a solution to just 'come out', as it were, compared to other Faunus students. Instead, Ozpin deliberately instituted a blockade on information about the Belladonna name leaking out of the school records and cooperated with the local news media to do the same. Beacon may not be a, well, Haven, but Ozpin was determined to keep his students safe just the same.

The same was _not_ true for a certain other student with secrets to hide, but Jaune came forward with his own secret, anyway, and by that point Glynda had already known for a while, far too late for her to do anything.)

"Ozpin is already discussing the terms of team RWBY's punishment in his office, and because you are accessories to them breaking their house arrest, you will also receive similar punishment." Glynda began. "But that's not why I called you here. No, the reason is simple…"

Glynda used her Telekinesis to float Nora, who was _dangerously close_ to unearthing a special Mistralian Graphic Novel that Glynda was hiding in her bookshelf, by the scruff of her neck, plopping her next to Ren. Nora, in response, only let out a small "aww."

Having moved past the distraction, Glynda looked at Pyrrha. "Miss Nikos, how are your studies faring?"

Pyrrha looked confused at the question. "They're… doing well?"

"Top student in our year!" Nora opined from the couch. Ren merely put his shoulders on Nora's shoulder to stop her from standing up and cheering.

"Oh, we can't be sure of that _yet_ …" Pyrrha bashfully replied. "Who knows what the end of term exams may bring."

Glynda cleared her throat again. "I ask because, while your performance _has_ been exemplary, it is your… activities with your team that give me concern."

That made the rest of JNPR sit up in attention.

"On an individual level, Miss Nikos, I am impressed at your performance. You truly are one of the best students we have in Beacon." Glynda rarely gave out high praise, but she felt that Pyrrha deserved it. Pyrrha _was_ one of the best.

Glynda continued. "But we also grade people by team performance, and, well…"

"…the rest of us are dragging her down," Jaune finally added with a heavy voice.

"It is not a knock on your performance, Mr. Arc." Glynda hastened to add. "Quite frankly, I _am_ impressed at the improvement the three of you have shown over your tenure here at Beacon. Miss Valkyrie, much to my surprise, has excelled academically," a phrase that made Nora _blush_ , which was a first for Glynda, "as well as in the practical exams, and Mr. Ren isn't too far behind. And while you may have started out as one of the worst students in the year, you've certainly managed to drag yourself to 'competent'. You also seem to excel in leadership class, despite your…everything."

"Thanks?" Jaune uttered in confusion.

"But we are _still_ nothing compared to Pyrrha." Ren added, after a moment of silence. Glynda was starting to reevaluate the silent Mistralian boy. She had dismissed him as the passive push-over type, but at least he was quick on the uptake. "And as a result, her standing may be in peril. Is this your concern, Professor Goodwitch?"

"Oh, no, I do not care much for academic standing here." Glynda corrected Ren. "Rather, _my_ concern is that Pyrrha's development may be… stagnating. The three of you have improved, but Pyrrha has plateaued as a Huntress."

\---0---

Unfortunately, Pyrrha Nikos' team was _not_ up to par.

Ozpin's logic made sense – they didn't want Pyrrha to be the leader of her own team, or even play the role of second in command, in case they needed to pull her out and make her the inheritor of the Fall Maiden's powers. Besides, her profile and her actions in the field were that of a follower: Pyrrha was content to allow her partner to wander into a Deathstalker's lair, despite her own misgivings, and while she was a beast in the battlefield, she was _far_ too timid for her own good.

But Glynda disapproved of Ozpin's choice for leader, since Jaune Arc, despite what his transcripts said, was an utter _buffoon_ who didn't have even the basics of combat down. Sure, she could admit that the young man was quick on his feet and fell naturally into the role as leader, once it became apparent that all his comrades were not up to the task, but it was like the one-eyed man leading the blind. The other two were just as bad – Glynda didn't know much of either one's history, except the fact that the two were orphans but she did _not_ see how someone as hyperactive and uncontrollable as Nora Valkyrie would mesh well with the passive and seemingly weak-willed Lie Ren. The fact that Ren, despite his protests, allowed Nora to _ride an Ursa to the ruins_ was proof of how much the young man was willing to let other people walk all over him, which showed poor leadership material. And goodness, imagine letting Miss Valkyrie lead a team!

Still, Ozpin had insisted on Jaune being the leader, and Glynda had long learned to trust Ozpin's judgment. While he wasn't always _right_ with his calls, he often had the _only_ calls, and there was genuinely no other choice, so Pyrrha Nikos found herself as part of team JNPR, and Glynda could only hope that their influence wouldn't corrupt her _too_ much.

Of course, Glynda felt that she was destined to be disappointed, as team JNPR was determined to be a beacon for trouble as the first semester passed. Nora Valkyrie was rambunctious _and_ gained Port's approval, which could only spell trouble for the school. Lie Ren was a perfectly fine student, except he was too passive for his own good and never objected to any harebrained scheme that Nora came up with. And worst of all, _worst of all_ , was Jaune Arc, who Glynda was sure was actively covering for and enabling Nora's excesses. What made it worse was that Jaune Arc proved to be a poor student, something that did not come to a surprise for Glynda – his academic performance was average at best, his combat skills nonexistent, and instead of leading his team and making sure everyone was properly motivated to be the best they could be, he was either wrapped up in his own head, or worse, spending time with _team CRDL_ of all people!

(Glynda could admit that Beacon didn't always accept… the best of students, and CRDL was a good example of that. Ozpin was equally accepting of both those who were already skilled as well as those who showed potential, but the reality was that both types of students were in short supply, so you often had to make do with what you have. It helped, of course, that the Winchesters were _very_ generous with the donations. No wonder Peach seemed to be the only one fond of the boys…)

There were the small incidents, of course, like the time that the Beacon cafeteria ran out of flour and eggs, which _mysteriously_ happened at the same time that Nora Valkyrie was spotted, passed out, surrounded by empty plates and bottles of syrup, in the shared common room that team RWBY and JNPR used often. Glynda recalled the horrors she had witnessed, responding to the panicked call she received from Russel Thrush. When she arrived, she observed that surrounding the Valkyrie was her teammates – Jaune was frantically trying to clean the room while Ren was trying to assist Pyrrha, who was collapsed on one of the couches, as well as their sister team's Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long, both of whom were slumped over the common room dining table, groaning something about overkill. Their teammates, Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna, were sticking close to the sibling duo, swearing they had nothing to do with the incident, even as they did a poor job of hiding the syrup stains and bits of pancakes stuck to their lips.

There were simply too many other incidents to recall. What about the time in Combat class when Glynda decided that it would be a good idea to pit Nora and Blake? She had _no_ idea Blake's Shadow clones could be used like _that_! Or that time Yang Xiao Long took the entirety of JNPR on that night out in Vale! Glynda was _still_ fielding reports of drunken vandalism, fights breaking out in bars, and animal cruelty! These were still _teenagers_ , for crying out loud! And don't get her started on her poor instant cup noodles! It wasn't every day that you got your favorite brand of cup noodles thanks to Pyrrha secretly offering them as an apology for her team's antics, but Mr. Arc and Mr. Ren certainly ruined _that_ special moment!

And really, what was so _annoying_ about it was the way that poor Miss Nikos was being dragged into the nonsense of her teammates and her friends, as opposed to improving her own skills. If anything, she was wasting time trying to get Jaune Arc, of all people, up to speed! Glynda could admit that ever since the Forever Fall incident, Jaune had steadily improved in all aspects of his Huntsman training, and Glynda attributed that (and his familiar combat stances) to Pyrrha Nikos taking him under his wing. But it wasn't enough to be _Pyrrha Nikos' partner!_

(It didn't help that, a few days after incident in Forever Fall, Ozpin had just casually let it slip that Jaune _forged his transcripts_ (which certainly confirmed a lot of Glynda's suspicions, and explained much of his recent behavior), and while Glynda had wanted to make moves to expel the student, Ozpin had warned her about how much of a bureaucratic nightmare it would be to process _all_ of his papers, now that he had settled into the school, and more importantly, how much he had managed to make himself indispensable to his team _and_ their sister team. At the very least, Glynda could admit, Jaune Arc had the mindset to be a Huntsman, even if he lacked the skill. The fact that Jaune came forward about it, on his own accord, a day after Ozpin's casual revelation, helped smooth things over, even if that was the start of Glynda assigning him and his team extra detention.)

Nora and Ren certainly weren't helping matters either – Ren was, simply put, no match for the Invincible Girl, as his stamina was simply appalling, and Nora, while certainly a skilled combatant, was not Pyrrha Nikos levels of skilled, plus she was horribly one-dimensional in combat to boot. Simply put, Pyrrha was simply outshining the rest of her team!

Adding to this, team RWBY, for all that Ozpin seemed to take pride in his vaunted team's skill and talent, proved no match for the champion as well. She had had hopes for Yang Xiao Long, but the brawler was, like Nora, too one-dimensional in her combat tactics the deeper a fight went, which was a shame because she displayed excellent combat skills otherwise. Ruby Rose simply didn't have it in her to engage well against human opponents compared to Grimm, Weiss Schnee was too stiff with her movements and had a hard time making full use of her semblance's potential, and Blake Belladonna… Glynda suspected that there was something mentally holding the mysterious student back, because as far as Glynda could tell, Blake _was_ capable of fighting Pyrrha the best out of all the Invincible Girl's friends, undoubtedly thanks to her mysterious past that only Ozpin was privy to, but refused to do so, even during Combat class.

Glynda was often tempted, in fact, to just take Pyrrha aside and personally instruct her, fearing that Pyrrha was wasting the prime years of her lives socializing with her peers instead of developing her skills, but she knew that it was unbecoming of her to play favorites. Ozpin expressly forbade her from doing so as well, citing "philosophical reasons", but Glynda just chalked it up to Ozpin wanting her to spend more time focusing on _his_ team. Well, she wasn't having any of it! Even if she couldn't focus exclusively on preparing Pyrrha Nikos to be an excellent Huntress (and perhaps a Maiden candidate in the future), nothing was stopping her from maybe looking after Pyrrha _and_ her team, as… inadequate as they were. Not that she was playing favorites or anything!

\---0---

The mood in Glynda's office was heavy as everyone processed Glynda's words. Glynda continued talking for a bit more, but it was clear that her students were not in the best shape mentally to process her feedback. Glynda _had_ expected that reaction, knowing full well that students didn't react well to being told they were an albatross hanging around their teammates' necks, but Glynda had to tell herself that it was for everyone's benefit that she was being this blunt with them. Pyrrha Nikos needed to be the best possible version of herself if she was to be the Fall Maiden, and she didn't have the luxury of worrying about Miss Nikos' teammates' feelings!

(Glynda did her best to ignore the sullen look on Nora's face, the brief pang of anger that flashed on Ren's, and the utter look of… _defeat_ on Jaune's face. She didn't have anything against them! It wasn't her fault that Pyrrha Nikos was simply too good for the average student, and that her teammates weren't up to the task of keeping up with her!

…right?)

What _did_ get to Glynda was the _utter_ look of contempt that Pyrrha shot at her as team JNPR left Glynda's office, and the parting words that followed:

"With all due respect, Professor Goodwitch… I don't appreciate you presuming things for me _or_ my team." Pyrrha was positively glowering at Glynda. "We all have our own way of doing things."

Gods, but it was moments like this that drove Glynda to smoke in the first place. Instead, she took out one of the lollipops in her bowl to give her _something_ to chew on, even as Jaune's words about the lack of sugar in the suckers reverberated in her head, the same way that Pyrrha's words haunted Goodwitch for the rest of the day. Suddenly, the bland taste in her mouth wasn't comforting anymore.

The words of her students rung in her head so strongly that she could hear them even as she went out to Vale that weekend to buy a whole complement of Munch Bars for her candy bowl, seeing as Nora had devoured most of the candy in the bowl in the first place. (Glynda also made a note to buy lollipops with actual sugar this time, but there wasn't any particular reason for that, she swore to herself.) As she dragged herself to her apartment with the full complement of candy, having picked up her shipment of Sour Patch Grimm and bought a large pack of Neo's DumDum Lollipops and Munch Bars for her bowl, she could only look in despair as the laundry and cup noodles in her apartment continued to pile up. She had lost count of how many times she had tried to clean up her apartment, which resembled ancient ruins more than they did the house of a single teacher who lived alone. She had also lost count of how many weekends she had tried to clean up the blackhole of laundry and food that was her apartment, and it felt as if all her attempts at fixing things only led to more messes. It was a wonder she oversaw Beacon maintenance if she couldn't even maintain her personal life!

(What right did she have, then, to tell Pyrrha how to live her life?)

The Monday after her little talk with her te- _team JNPR_ , Glynda had settled into her office after class, rearranging the candy in her bowl to best display the new candy acquisitions when the door burst open to reveal Nora Valkyrie, carrying a huge boombox ( _where_ did the blasted thing come from?), the device and Nora both seemingly amped up on Lightning Dust if the electricity crackling from her body was any indication. With a loud slam, Nora heaved the boombox down onto Glynda's office with a smug look of pride on her face.

"Miss… Valkyrie? What is this all about?"

"HEY GLYNDA! Ooh, Sour Patch Grimm! _Wait,_ are those Munch Bars? And DumDums! Oooh, Jauney and Pyrrha's gonna love this!" Nora shouted as she darted to Glynda's desk and grabbed as much of the candy as possible. Glynda made no effort to stop her, allowing the berserker to line her own pockets with sweets.

"It's a little demonstration," the voice of Pyrrha Nikos rang out, and Glynda was surprised to see the rest of team JNPR file in. (She also noted the way Nora handed Jaune and Pyrrha their share of the candy, not that she was paying attention if they _liked_ the candy on her bowl.) Glynda had expected the team to avoid her for the time being, considering how badly their last encounter went, but here they were now – Jaune with a look of trepidation on his face, Ren with the neutral expression, and Pyrrha looking determined to see _something_ through, even if Glynda wasn't sure what it was.

"We were thinking about what you said last weekend, and this is our response." Ren replied, adjusting the cuffs on his arm, as if to make sure they fit his body properly. The rest of her team was busy doing the same – Jaune was stretching his arms and legs, probably to loosen them up, and Nora was, as always, darting all over the room, before she made her way to the boombox and pressed the _play_ button.

♫♫♫ _I was cold in the dark_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _It was empty in my life_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _From the outside it looked so bright_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _But nothing felt right... to me_ ♫♫♫

Glynda wasn't sure what was stranger – the fact that the team began an impromptu dance routine right in front of her or the fact that she was paying with rapt attention. Glynda never considered herself much of a dance person, or really, a person interested in the creative arts – she had spent most of her life learning how to control her semblance and defeat Grimm as a Huntress, and as a result, she never found herself with hobbies, really. Glynda had resigned herself to the fact that she was going to be an eternal bore whose life revolved around teaching the next generation of students. But even so, Glynda found herself paying attention to the coordination of the team, from Jaune's joyful exuberance at moving his body, a departure from the awkward look on his face during combat, to Nora's explosive movements that _almost_ fell out of line with everyone else's steps, except that Nora clearly did her best to match everyone's movements, to Ren's face of pure concentration as he performed each step with an execution that hinted at hours upon hours of practice to master.

It was Pyrrha, however, that shocked Glynda the most, because she could see that Pyrrha was clearly struggling with the dance. Her body shifted with the grace of a boarbatusk in a Mistralian shop, struggling to keep up with the rhythm of the song or her other teammates, and to Glynda, it didn't make _sense_ – this was the same Invincible Girl who moved around the battlefield with the grace of an experienced fighter twice her age? The same warrior who weaved around multiple opponents, exploiting their weaknesses, and pushing her body to the limits? Because from Glynda's untrained eye, Pyrrha Nikos was barely executing a proper kick-step, kick-step, bodyroll, unlike the rest of her team!

♫♫♫ _Like a sky with no sun_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _Like a night that has no day_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _My heart was eclipsed by the dark_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _Then something changed_ ♫♫♫

By the time the song had finished, Glynda could spot the sweat on their faces, the exhaustion that haunted their bodies. Ann had mentioned that JNPR indulged in these… dance practices every weekend, during her observations of the team, but something about their little performance suggested that they must have done a little _extra_ that weekend.

"Well?" Pyrrha gasped, struggling to catch her breath as the song concluded. "How was it?" She was looking at Glynda with a triumphant look on her face, and Glynda had no idea how to respond to Pyrrha. For one, she had never even _seen_ that look on Pyrrha's face before. Not in any of the infomercials she starred in, nor during class, where she carried herself calmly and with decorum, or even in her tournament fights, where her face wore the mask of a trained warrior. No, Pyrrha Nikos was smiling – no, she was _beaming_. Like a fog was lifted from her heart and allowed light to shine through, clearing away the darkness.

"…it could have been better." Glynda managed to offer, all too aware of her lack of knowledge about dance. "The other three were fine, but you were clearly struggling to keep up with their movement."

Pyrrha's face at Glynda's remark almost made Glynda laugh, as Pyrrha looked utterly crestfallen at Glynda's criticism, but Jaune and Ren simply laughed it off. Ren even had the gall to chide Pyrrha! "I _told_ you Glynda would not be impressed with just a weekend's worth of preparation."

"Aw, lay off her, Ren." Jaune gently reprimanded Ren. "You have to admit, she's improved _so_ much since we started doing these things."

"Yeah, Ren! Stop being so… Ren!" Nora added, punching Ren on the shoulder, causing the Mistralian boy to almost collapse onto the couch. Jaune continued laughing as he moved to help Ren from falling, and Pyrrha followed, giggling all the way.

As the four looked at each other and laughed at their silliness, Glynda couldn't help but laugh along. Maybe she _was_ mistaken about Pyrrha's teammates if they could get her to smile like this.

"Well then… what was your goal in showing me all this, Miss Nikos?" Glynda dared to ask. She had an inkling of what the answer was, but lately, she was realizing that it was best not to speak _for_ other people, to allow them the chance to express themselves. So instead she asked the question and hoped that Pyrrha Nikos would respond.

Pyrrha, upon hearing the question, smiled and walked towards the desk to pick up another Munch Bar (didn't Miss Valkyrie hand her a couple, already?), unwrapping the bar and taking a bite. After swallowing, she began to speak:

"To remind you that I'm just like anybody else."

Pyrrha took another bite of the Munch Bar before continuing.

"And that even the Invincible Girl has weaknesses."

As if recalling a hilarious in-joke, she added, after a few seconds, "Honestly, I think mine is in my heels."

"She _does_ have a hard time with heel-focused dance moves," Ren added as he sucked on a DumDum. (When did he get his hands on the candy bowl?!). "Considering she fights in her heels, it is very strange that she has a hard time with these things."

"Oh, shush, Ren," Pyrrha laughed in response.

As the four shared grins at each other, proud of the work that they had put in, Glynda had to admit that maybe she was premature in dismissing the team, that maybe the _Invincible Girl_ wasn't so invincible, after all, if she was struggling with something like this, and maybe her teammates _weren't_ the weight around her neck that Glynda feared they were. Perhaps even what she saw was stagnation was a fault of her own perspective as well. Looking at Pyrrha's smiling face as she exchanged jokes with Jaune, Nora, and Ren, Glynda supposed that all her initial judgments of the girl were, perhaps, mistaken. If so, maybe… maybe Pyrrha wasn't the best fit to be her candidate? Not yet?

Well, Glynda thought to herself, this isn't how things were supposed to happen, but really, when did anything in her life ever did?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally wanted this to be a one-shot, but, well, I'm clocking in at like 20k words on this. Expect the next chapter tomorrow or the next day since everything's been written. The two are absolutely meant to be read together, but, well, I didn't want to overwhelm everyone like I did with Team NWBY. Leave a review and tell me what you think so far, maybe?


	2. ii. second semester/iii. After the Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was tempted to add the last part as a 3rd chapter, but I figured I already broke one promise by making this a two-shot and also for not uploading on time. Blame the fact that I reedited to add a new scene at the end. So have the two parts together instead.

**ii. second semester**

The thing about habits is that you barely notice when they are formed or broken.

For example, at the beginning of the second semester, the candy bowl on Glynda’s desk could be found closer to her, since she tended to reach for the candy bowl after particularly annoying meetings with Ozpin’s cabal, or when Nora Valkyrie did something particularly dangerous that day. But a few months into the semester, Glynda had found that her hands began to shoot towards the candy bowl every time the door opened, moving it forward for easier access, since it was rather awkward for the students in front of her to stand up if they wanted to reach for the candy. Thankfully, Glynda found herself relying less and less on the candy bowl to sate her urge for a smoke lately, so at least it was doing _some_ good for her bad habits. Who knew that Professor Port could give decent advice after all?

Which was why when the door opened, Glynda didn’t even flinch or move her eyes from the report she was writing on her desk. Instead, she lifted her candy bowl with her semblance, taking care to avoid the bowl colliding with James’ hard-light dust lamp gift like it did the first time she attempted this, and deposited it at the front of her desk for easier access.

“No Sour Patch Grimm this time, Ms. Valkyrie. Seems they’ve run out of stock.”

“Oh, no, Glynda, I’m not a fan of sour candy.”

Glynda’s eyes shot up, surprised to see the figure of the headmaster standing in front of her.

“What brings you down here, Ozpin? I’m surprised you didn’t call me up to your office.”

“True, but I had some free time and figured it was best to visit you.”

“Ozpin, you’re _never_ as busy as you claim. I should know since you blow off most of your paperwork. Considering the amount of work I do around here, I’m sure I’m due for a raise.”

Instead of responding to the question, Ozpin took the time to rummage through the candy bowl, humming at the selection – the last few packs of Sour Patch Grimm, a couple of Munch Bars, stray Neo’s DumDum Pops, even that Matcha Chocolate bar Lie Ren admitted to enjoying after Glynda had put JNPR through a particularly harsh traini- detention…

“…have I ever told you that your taste in candy is impeccable?” Ozpin observed, eyeing the selection of candy in Glynda’s bow. She certainly didn’t _miss_ the subtext.

“… _No_ , Ozpin, I’m not siphoning Lien off the budget just to fill my candy bowl. I pay for this out of my own wallet.”

“Beacon’s coffers thank you for your sacrifice, Glynda.”

“My wallet certainly doesn’t. Oh, and for the record, I am _not_ Beacon’s Custodian, so please stop using me to save on repair expenses. You can’t expect me to put Beacon back together again after a great Fall if I don’t receive the proper compensation!”

“Quoting nursery rhymes are unbecoming of you.”

“I figured I would speak _your_ language for once, considering you’re obsessed with fairy tales and children’s bedtime rhymes.”

“Just because I teach the class on fairy tales and mythology does not make me obsessed with them, Glynda. You know as well as I do that there is much we can glean from the old stories. There is much _truth_ buried in them.”

Glynda sighed, massaging the temples on her head to combat the incoming migraine. “And how much of that “truth” did you personally pen?”

Once again, Ozpin seemed intent on ignoring Glynda’s pertinent questions, as the headmaster simply smiled and threw out a question of his own. “So I hear you’ve been giving team JNPR more training on the side. Something about you being impressed by their… dance moves? That stunt at the dance certainly opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

“I have been giving them extra detention because of their misadventures, if that is what you are implying. Not that you would know what detention is, considering what you let your favorite team of students get away with.”

Ozpin chuckled, ignoring Glynda’s obvious barbs. Unperturbed, Glynda continued: “Besides, I was _not_ impressed by their dancing. Miss Nikos’ dancing skills leave much to be desired. And the rest of her team, for some reason, are more adept at dancing than they are at combat. An inefficient use of their time, I feel, if they spend their weekends dancing rather than training.”

“For the record, I think there is some worth to dance as a form of training. It is very similar to fighting, after all. _Two partners interlocked…_ ”

“Yes, Ozpin, I have read your books. The staff section of the library is stocked with multiple copies. I’m not sure which was a smarter use of school funds: your books on dancing or Oobleck’s attempts at growing coffee.”

“In any case, I do hope that your… detention times with JNPR is going well?”

That made Glynda pause. It was true that, after their little performance in her office last semester, that Glynda had taken to… assigning them more detention, as punishment for invading her office and playing extremely loud music. (Incidentally, Glynda confiscated Nora’s boombox and… placed it by an empty corner of the room, close to Glynda’s desk. Purely for safety, of course.) Glynda could also admit that, with all of the nonsense that the team got up to, that perhaps a permanent session of detention every weekend would do the team much good, as well as extra counselling sessions every now and then for the members who need it. Could anyone really blame her if she encouraged Jaune to sit in the upperclassmen combat classes if he had a free period, or encouraging Ren and Pyrrha to attend assertiveness seminars, or if she held one-on-one sessions with Nora to curb her enthusiasm? Detention was meant to teach students discipline, of course, and what better way to instill some discipline than making them do productive things during detention! So what if Glynda made a habit of assigning them all this work for detention?

Glynda sighed as she responded to Ozpin’s question. “I suppose it is. _Someone_ had to punish them for things like the food fight, after all.”

\---0---

Glynda never thought that she would be taking curtain advice from Lie Ren, of all people, but here she was, trying to install the curtains she had purchased via CCTnet after advice from the Mistralian boy.

Off in the corner couch, said Mistralian Boy was currently writing the essay that Glynda had assigned him, a two-page meditation on how he would be the voice of reason for his team in the future to avoid another incident like the _Fifth Great Beacon Cafeteria War_. Sitting next to him was Pyrrha, who was doing the same task, although the theme of her essay was the proper usage of semblances in combat ( _Just because you_ can _use your semblance to levitate all the soda cans in the cafeteria means you_ should _,_ Glynda admonished) and the Invincible Girl was clearly struggling to fill the two-page requirement. Jaune and Nora, meanwhile, were moving Glynda’s shelves and rearranging the books on her shelf to accommodate the new addition to the room: a small kitchen table filled with tea, coffee, and cups, as well as a refrigerator.

It wasn’t like Glynda _needed_ the things in her office, but seeing as JNPR seemed intent on making her office their weekly retreat for some nonsense or another ( _Seriously! How could they get in trouble during the semester break?! And dragging along Ms. Schnee and Ms. Belladonna as well?_ ) she figured that she may as well try to be slightly more accommodating of her most constant visitors. The refrigerator was a suggestion that came about after Nora accidentally ate too many of Pyrrha’s Munch Bars and needed something to drink, as well as Glynda noticing the _massive_ breach in etiquette that was her students spending upwards to an hour in her office without anything to drink. She had procured some of her favorite tea bags and bought Jaune and Nora’s favorite brand of coffee, _Real Chibi Beans_ , and stocked the refrigerator with bottled water, juice cartons, and milk. Glynda, after all, was starting to realize that detention was thirsty work!

The cups, too, were a lucky get – she was interested in replacing her old tea and coffee cups (not that she could find them in her apartment anyway) and found a ceramics expert who offered her a deal to make customized cups, and she had immediately commissioned a set for herself. She knew that most students had their own personalized emblems as well, and it was easy to get high quality images of said emblems from Nora during one of their one-on-one sessions, and it only took a week for the new set to be delivered, just in time for the beginning of classes. Along with the coffee maker, the small Dust stove and the kettle for boiling tea, and Glynda had a nice little mini-kitchen set up in her office.

“You know, Glynda, you could just be using your Semblance to carry this.” Nora complained as she and Jaune lifted the bookcase, carrying it over to the other corner of the room, to the left of Glynda’s desk.

“ _Nora_!” Jaune admonished. “I’m _so_ sorry, Professor Goodwitch. Nora didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“I’m sure she didn’t, Mr. Arc.” Glynda replied. She finally managed to put up the curtains, a floral pattern that was surprisingly breezy even as it covered the window, and was now reviewing a couple of after-action reports and handling the billing for repairs to the cafeteria, and she was _not_ looking forward to looking at all the expenses incurred by the wasted food, but that wasn’t JNPR’s fault, was it? By all accounts, it was _Ozpin’s_ team that escalated things… “Miss Valkyrie, you can leave the shelves there. We still have some rearranging to do.”

Ozpin may have scoffed at the idea, but making JNPR rearrange her office for their detention felt appropriate. Considering the mess they made of the cafeteria, teaching them the difficulties of interior redecoration felt like a fitting way to make up for the mistakes and follies of their youth. Much better than Ozpin _just letting team RWBY get away with the Food Fight!_

“Awesome!” Nora cheered. “Now we get to put up the _posters_!”

“Posters?” Glynda dared to ask.

“Nora got it in her head to put up posters for your office.” Ren replied from the couch. “She says your office walls are very… drab.”

Glynda wasn’t _sure_ how to take that statement, but she did ask Ren for advice on curtains, so she supposed the boy had _some_ eye for interior decoration. “Just as long as it’s nothing crass or unbecoming, then. I wouldn’t want an Achieve-Men poster or anything of that sort.” She was glad that nobody asked her _why_ she knew who they were. _The world can never know..._

“Awww, don’t tell Yang that, she’ll be sad,” Nora cooed, producing multiple rolled up posters from seemingly out of nowhere. “Anyway, not to worry, Glynda! Jaune made sure I didn’t get anything too outlandish!”

“Pyrrha also gave us a few promotional posters she was on,” Jaune added.

“It wasn’t as if I was using them,” Pyrra nodded, scrapping the entire page she had written, evidently unsatisfied by her writing efforts. “It would be very strange to decorate my side of the dorm room with posters of myself. It seems very narcissistic.”

“I keep _telling_ you, Pyrrha, you should sign these!” Nora shouted, already at the other side of the room and putting up a Pyrrha poster, this one a homage to a famous Valean wartime slogan, with Pyrrha in a bandanna and overalls proclaiming that Valeans could do it. “We’d make a lot of Lien with autographed posters!”

“I’ll consider it if you deplete our ammo budget again, Nora.” Pyrrha offered, nonplussed by Nora’s casual suggestion to monetize her fame.

“Duly noted!” Nora replied, unrolling another poster, this one a motivational cat poster (was that… Miss Belladonna trying to ‘hang in there’? Where is she getting these posters?) and sticking it a few steps away from the Pyrrha poster.

“Try not to go overboard, Nora.” Glynda reminded the Valkyrie, who was currently unrolling even more folders. Off to the side, Pyrrha had evidently given up on her essay and started gnawing at her Munch Bar, and Ren, noticing that Pyrrha was taking a break, did the same. Jaune, noticing that things were mostly settled, began to brew tea and coffee for everyone. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

Glynda smiled. _We could make a habit of this_.

\---0---

“So what brings you here, Ozpin?” Glynda asked, her eyes never leaving her work.

“Like I said, I just wanted to check up on you.” Ozpin replied, munching on a crunch bar. “I love the changes you’ve made to the place, by the way. Makes it feel much more lived in.”

Glynda rolled her eyes with that statement. “Ozpin, as much as I enjoy trading passive-aggressive barbs at you, I _am_ busy right now. I would like to finish these reports before my students arrive for detention.”

Ozpin chuckled. “Yes, I know that you have the training arena booked for a training session every week at this time. If I didn’t know any better, you were angling for overtime pay. But I suppose I should get to the point.”

Glynda hummed, not saying anything, wanting Ozpin to just go on and say it.

“How _are_ your students, Glynda? I’ve allowed you to deal with them at your discretion, after all.”

Glynda felt relief wash over her body when Ozpin finally put it into words. She, after all, couldn’t deny it. It was no secret that, despite their best efforts, teachers played favorites. Ozpin had RWBY, Oobleck had CFVY, and Peach had CRDL (even if it was just because of Peach’s mistaken belief that the boys brought her a _lot_ of red fall sap from that one field trip they went on. The perils of never being around…) But for Glynda Goodwitch, admitting to favoritism didn't befit her image, even if Glynda could admit to herself that she was human, just like the rest of the teachers, and had her own preferences. It was unavoidable, after all, to have biases, but Glynda believed that was better than that, that despite her biases she was treating her students _fairly_.

“I believe my students are progressing fairly well. I’m quite happy with team JNPR’s progress, and even Miss Nikos has shown remarkable advancement in her skills, despite my fears that she has… stagnated.” That one Glynda could admit was a faulty assessment, clouded by her own admiration of the Invincible Girl. It was _hard_ to observe in what ways Pyrrha had improved, if one only knew her from her tournament matches and her appearances in random CCTnet videos, but it took months of interaction for Glynda to see past the pedestal and truly observe the girl standing atop it.

The Pyrrha Nikos of old was the epitome cold professionalism in combat, but in the past few months she revealed a side of her that previously only emerged in her most difficult tournament fights – she recalled Pyrrha’s practice spar with team CRDL, the one where _completely trounced_ a full team of trained Huntsmen all at once, and buried underneath the slick, practiced maneuvers was a passionate girl who was adding an extra _oomph_ to each blow she landed on her opponents, each swing of her xiphos, each lunge with her javelin, and each dust bullet from her rifle. To the untrained eye, it was practiced grace, the movement of a body honed through the trials of combat, but Glynda saw differently: it was the furious, raging blows of a frenzied warrior, unleashing pent-up emotion and masking it as tactical brilliance.

(The fact that Pyrrha especially disliked team CRDL was left unmentioned, of course.)

Simply put, her recent fights had been _dazzling_. If the Pyrrha Nikos was old was a perfect, well-oiled machine, with only the occasional flashes of truly breathtaking movement, the current Pyrrha Nikos, who seemed to have found a goal worth fighting for, was more blinding than the sun, more limitless and _free_ , whose movements and her emotions were operating in tandem, in complete sync. She was growing stronger and stronger each day, seemingly having found her emotional center, and Glynda wasn’t arrogant enough to claim that she had a hand in that improvement.

No, what Glynda _had_ a hand on was making sure the rest of Pyrrha’s team was up to par and were fit to stand next to Pyrrha Nikos.

\---0---

The sight of Glynda training team JNPR in the training room had become a common occurrence as the second semester progressed. During the first semester, some of the staff, and even a few students, found it strange when Glynda began personally coaching JNPR (JNR, really – Glynda had insisted that Pyrrha instead attend seminars on assertiveness and self-assertion in social situations, even if it didn’t seem to have any visible effect on Pyrrha’s poor ability to voice out her opinions in social situations. Glynda, meanwhile, worked on getting JNR up to par with Pyrrha), but by the time the second semester rolled around, it had become a weekly occurrence that people eventually became used to the sight of Glynda in the training room through sheer attrition, like a habit formed by repetition.

Jaune let out another yelp as Glynda sent out a barrage of rocks, hoisted by and thrown at swift speeds with her semblance, towards the blonde knight. Reacting as quickly as he could, Jaune raised his shield up to his face to deflect the first few strikes, before using the momentum from the rocks colliding against his shield to push himself backwards and avoid the rocks aimed at his feet.

The gambit _would_ have worked if Jaune had any idea what a ricochet meant and guarded appropriately, but as he distanced himself from the rocks, the makeshift bullets simply bounced off the ground and went straight towards Jaune’s… family jewels. Jaune’s voice reverberated throughout the arena, a pitch higher than Glynda had heard in some time, and she felt a pang of sympathy for Jaune as he collapsed on the floor, nursing his wounded masculinity. Off to the side, Nora bellowed out in laughter while Ren was shaking his head, disbelief and amusement in equal measure.

“Apologies, Mr. Arc.” Glynda said, doing her best to hide her own smirk, “But in the future, try to be more mindful of your surroundings and the ways projectile attacks interact with them. Perhaps invest in a cup as well, considering you prefer taking hits rather than dodging them.”

“Duly… noted…” Jaune managed to groan out.

Glynda gave Jaune a few moments to recover from the grievous blow before proceeding on her lecture. She had gleaned as much from teaching their combat classes, and part of it was Jaune was the type of student who did better when you explained the theoretical side of combat, as opposed to allowing him to intuit things in live battle, so she had taken the time to explain to the scraggly boy what he did right and wrong from an academic standpoint.

“You should be more aware of the dimensions of your shield. You tend to overcompensate for the area that needs covering when blocking, leaving far too many open spots that a savvy opponent can take advantage of.”

Jaune nodded, having pulled out his scroll to start writing down notes. Glynda appreciated that – far too many students _listened_ to her combat lessons, but rarely did they _take notes_. She supposed it was a quirk of Jaune’s learning style.

“Furthermore, you should get rid of your tendency to retreat when pressed. This is a bad combat habit you should attempt to curb. The point of fighting with a sword and shield is to use the shield to give you options for advancing into range. This is why your offensive maneuvers against humans are lacking.” Glynda continued, as she waved the Disciplinarian in the air to collect all the debris that she had been using as ammunition. “Frankly, your current tactics would work better if you _had_ a ranged weapon of some kind, and I am baffled as to why you refuse to carry a firearm, at least.”

From outside the arena, Glynda heard Nora and Ren shudder. She didn’t miss the groan from Nora, who was mumbling something about “never letting Fearless Leader handle my poor Magnhild ever again…” and Ren cradling StormFlower, whispering what Glynda presumed were comforting words.

“Um… ignore them.” Jaune said, as he sat on the floor, cross-legged. “I practice with their weapons _one time…_ set the Emerald Forest on fire _one_ time…”

“That was you?” Glynda inquired. Why didn’t Ann tell her about this?!

“No, technically.” Jaune defended himself. “It isn’t my fault Nora forgot she was testing those Fire Dust grenades she got from Weiss.”

“ _You were aiming at an open area, not the trees, Jaune!_ ” Nora screeched from the sides. “ _It was most definitely your fault!_ ”

“ _How does someone shoot bullets in a completely opposite direction?!”_ Ren added, in a rare display of emotion that shocked even Glynda.

Doing her best to suppress a chuckle, for the second time today, Glynda cleared her throat. “In any case, we can continue if you are ready, Mr. Arc. Miss Valkyrie, Mr. Ren, you can continue sparring. I’ll give you my feedback later.”

With a shout, the spar began again, Jaune now taking the initiative to attack, although Glynda immediately put a stop to that with another barrage of rock and debris, while on the other side of the arena, Ren and Nora began trading blows. Like a well-oiled machine, each person slipped into habits, formed from months of constant repetition. It was shaping up to be a productive detention…

\---0---

“I’m glad to hear that you’re satisfied with their progress.” Ozpin opined, his eyes closed in contemplation as he sucked on one of Neo’s DumDum Pops. Glynda had to make a mental note about buying more later as she was running out. “Incidentally, have you heard about the betting pool for who will win the Vytal Tournament?”

“I know that Peach is adamant her ‘boys’ will win.” Glynda responded. “I don’t think she’s even _seen_ CRDL in action.”

Ozpin chuckled at Glynda’s assessment. “Be that as it may, she is free to choose who she believes will win.”

“I assume you bet on RWBY, then?”

Ozpin smirked. “As headmaster, I cannot play favorites.”

If Glynda could scoff any louder at that moment, she would have surpassed the time she witnessed Weiss Schnee scoff at one of Jaune’s attempts at wooing. (Glynda had _so_ wanted to tell Jaune to give up on the heiress, as he was bordering on being a nuisance, but Glynda still respected the boundary between students and teachers. Unlike _some_ of her peers…) Instead, she activated her semblance to levitate the pot of tea that she had brewed beforehand, along with a ceramic cup for her and a paper cup for Ozpin.

The headmaster didn’t fail to notice the discrepancy, of course. “What, no personalized cup for me?”

“You don’t go here enough to warrant one.” Glynda offered, using her semblance to pour tea for the two of them. She sipped her tea and watched Ozpin eye his own cup, seemingly unfamiliar with the liquid in front of him. “I know it isn’t your beloved hot cocoa, but it’s good to try out different things every now and then.”

“I suppose so.” Ozpin acquiesced, taking a sip of Glynda’s tea before wincing and putting it down. After taking a moment to process the tea, Ozpin’s face turned grave as he cast a glance at the Pyrrha Nikos poster that was prominently displayed in the office. “Speaking of different things… how is Miss Nikos?”

Glynda was not fond of that tone that Ozpin adopted whenever they talked ‘business’, but she understood why he felt the need to do so, considering it was the fate of the world that they were dealing with. “She is progressing well with her studies and her training. I may have miscalculated when I objected to you putting her together with her current team, as they are proving to be excellent in helping her grow and develop.”

“I’m glad you see my logic for arranging their team like so.” Ozpin smiled, albeit with a pained look on his face, as he took another sip of his tea. “But I mean for the _other_ thing. Do you think she is capable of assuming… extra responsibilities now?”

Glynda didn’t miss the slight pang of regret on Ozpin’s tone, as if he didn’t want to put to words what he had just said. She was aware, painfully so, that none of them _wanted_ this, but there really was no other choice, was there? She was even the most keen for it, at the beginning, believing that Pyrrha was best candidate for the job, what with her psychological profile and combat skills pointing to someone who would be loyal to their group and understood the necessity of their task.

So why was it that she was hesitating to answer the question? Why was she delaying her response?

“…I would rather that she be given more time to develop, but yes, I believe she would be able to handle the responsibility, if given the choice.”

Glynda felt her gut grow cold at the words she uttered, as if she wanted to vomit at the sheer _logic_ of it all, like she was betraying something of Pyrrha Nikos’ trust in her. The thing was, she believed that her assessment was correct, even now. The logic was _sound._ Pyrrha _was_ the best candidate to receive the powers of the Fall Maiden: she would be able to safeguard it from the people who had attacked the previous Fall Maiden in the past, and more importantly, Pyrrha _would_ choose to work with Ozpin and his group. There simply was too much at stake for her _not_ to. Pyrrha Nikos was not the type of person who would allow the world to remain unprotected simply because she valued her own freedom and desires more than the safety of the world. After all, Pyrrha Nikos was a Huntress, and knew that there wasn’t any other choice.

And Glynda hated every second of it, because they were cruel enough to give her the choice.

\---0---

It was a week or so after the Breach, and life had more or less returned to normal, even if some of Vale’s citizens were still a little testy after the aborted invasion of Grimm into the city. While Glynda wasn’t fond of the secrecy, the call to keep the White Fang’s involvement in the whole affair silent and the subsequent media blackout of the event _was_ the right thing to do, in the grand scheme of things. Still, the whole affair left a sour taste in Glynda’s mouth (more sour than Nora’s beloved Sour Patch Grimm, even), especially when James Ironwood, of all people, insisted on… creative forms of propaganda to calm the masses. Really, who ever thought of releasing her team’s impromptu flash mob at the dance to quell people’s fears and make them forget the entry of the Atlesian military into Vale “for protection”?

The stress of the whole situation was beginning to give Glynda a headache, and she was really craving a DumDum right about now. If Ozpin were there to witness her, fidgeting through her (meagre) groceries for the week to fish out a DumDum Pop, he would have joked that she had simply replaced one bad habit with another. Somehow, Glynda didn’t mind – she much preferred being addicted to sugar rather than nicotine.

Still, as she was struggling with her groceries in the middle of a relatively uncrowded Valean street, Glynda had expected this weekend to go the way of all her previous weekends: she would sit in her apartment, consider trying to clean up the utter ruins of the place she called her living quarters, maybe even try cooking something at once, only to throw her hands up in the air and fishing for the tub of ice cream in her refrigerator which was closest to expiring. It was a habit, after all, developed from years of living alone, and it took Glynda a _lot_ of discipline to get rid of _one_ bad habit she had developed for years at this point. She sometimes worried about what would happen to her if she managed to _clean_ her apartment or cooked some healthy food, for once. (Not that Glynda could cook, if the Pyrrha Nikos Brand instant noodles littered all over her apartment was any indication.)

Glynda was just about ready to give up and buy a pack of cigarettes, rather than struggle with her groceries, when she saw a familiar group of four waving at her from the other end of the street. She was tempted to just _melt_ into the street, realizing that it was the last four students she had wanted to see in the state that she was in – frazzled, wearing a tracksuit instead of her immaculate work clothes, mismatched shoes from different pairs because she was in a rush, her hair undone out of laziness. It wasn’t her fault that she wanted to spend her weekend just lazing around her apartment!

“Oh, hey, it’s Glynda!” The booming voice of Nora Valkyrie echoed out around her. Without missing a beat, Nora _dashed_ to Glynda’s side, motioning to the rest to take some of Glynda’s groceries. “How are you doing? You need help with that? Wait, why aren’t you using your semblance, cuz Jaune didn’t think it was you because you would have been levitating your stuff but I was so _sure_ and Pyrrha said it wouldn’t hurt to check and then I noticed it was you because of the shoes I’ve seen you wear them before even if they’re different pairs once the tracksuit is new though oh my gods where did you get them they look _so_ comfy…”

“Breathe, Nora.” Ren laughed as he approached the two, Jaune and Pyrrha behind him. “Professor, do you need our help?”

“That would be appreciated, Mr. Ren.” Glynda replied, testing the feeling of pronouncing’s Ren’s name out loud on her tongue. The moment of contemplation made her pause. His first name was _Lie_ , wasn’t it? Why was it that everybody called him by his last name? Questions for later, she supposed. “As for your question, Miss Valkyrie, do you remember what I said during my lecture on Semblances last week?”

“That semblances are trump cards, not crutches!” Nora replied with a salute, impressing Glynda with her ability to recall minute details of her lecture. Glynda couldn’t help but notice Nora’s relieved smile, seemingly because Glynda didn’t seem to find anything wrong with her answer. Glynda wasn’t _that_ scary in class, was she?

“Oh, Nora.” Pyrrha giggled as she tried to take Glynda’s bag of candy, Glynda resisting slightly. She was _not_ interested in letting her students figure out what she was buying. Unfortunately, Pyrrha spotted the contents of the bag, her eyes squinting at the sight of Munch Bars and Matcha chocolate. “…I didn’t realize you bought all this candy yourself, Professor. I assumed the school supplied them.”

“Well," Glynda began to explain, "Ozpin is very tight-fisted with money.” Which was a lie, seeing as Ozpin spent an extravagant amount of money on things like that vanity project he self-published, but that was neither here nor there. At least he was using them as textbooks in class! “No need to worry, Miss Nikos. It is certainly no skin off my back.”

“What a strange saying.” Glynda heard Ren utter in confusion. Was Ren unfamiliar with Valean idioms?

“Yeah, well, you look like you need help.” Jaune offered, taking a grocery bag, filled to the brim with lots and lots of ice cream, from the teacher while Pyrrha took the bag of candy, leaving Glynda freed of her burdens, albeit temporarily. “It’s the least we can do for all the help you’ve given us.”

Glynda wanted to protest, that she wasn’t really _helping_ them, but Jaune and Pyrrha already began to walk back in the direction they had come from, with Nora and Ren following behind them. Glynda found herself transfixed to her position, as this was not part of her weekly habits and she was unsure of what to do. _Was she really going to invite her students back to her place_? It was more the ruins of a once-pristine place, a mess of unwashed clothes, teaching material, uneaten food, and whatever else Glynda brought home from work every week. Did she really have the gall to tell Ozpin that they should leave their work at the office when all she had made it her habit to leave her home behind for work?

And then Nora stopped, turned her head, and looked at her, smiling and nodding at her to follow them, and all her worries seemed to wash away, and suddenly, all of Glynda’s fears seemed so _small_ in comparison. _Well, they’re helping me kick one bad habit, so what’s one more?_

The resolve that Glynda had built up, however, was quickly dashed when she remembered the absolute _state_ of her apartment.

It was _worse_ than she remembered. As she was wont to do, she had allowed her laundry to pile up, and she had hoped to change into something more formal for her students, but she genuinely only _had_ the tracksuit in the first place. (She was thankful, at least, that nobody commented on her choice of attire.) Instead of at least trying to make her apartment presentable that weekend, she had opted to just watch the _The Kunoichi’s Lost Passion_ cartoon adaptation, ignoring the pile of dirty clothes scattered all around her living room and her bedroom, as well as her dining table, which had an incredible fragile tower-like structure made out of instant noodles and plates, and the kitchen itself had not experienced any form of cleaning or washing in weeks. The only thing keeping the place from attracting Grimm, Glynda supposed, was that she was diligent about making sure the trash was thrown out, but she wasn’t sure that was enough, either. At this rate, she would have to hire a team of trained Huntsmen and Huntresses for a special mission to clean out this mess.

Without missing a beat, Glynda observed, Jaune immediately looked at Nora and Ren, and the three shared knowing looks, nodding in unison. Nora and Jaune immediately darted off towards the living room, while Ren turned to Glynda and uttered: “I will taking over your kitchen to cook dinner. I hope this is fine for you?”

Utterly dumbfounded, Glynda could only nod. Ren, upon seeing Glynda consent to him invading her kitchen, moved with a speed that Glynda had only seen him perform during particularly difficult spars against Miss Belladonna or Miss Xiao Long, and as Glynda walked into her own home to see three of her students survey the ruins that she called her apartment, she found that she was unable to say anything, even as Nora upturned all her laundry and Ren rummaged through her kitchen and Jaune directing traffic.

“I haven't seen this many tomatoes since that time Ruby bet Weiss couldn't eat one raw!” Nora squeed, eyeing the stockpile of tomatoes in Glynda's apartment that Ren had found and started putting on the kitchen counter. Glynda couldn't quite explain why she had a surplus, and honestly, she was embarrassed to explain how she accidentally ordered a crate of tomatoes one time instead of Ren’s favorite Matcha-flavored chocolate bars. It wasn’t her fault shipping over the CCTnet was a crapshoot and she was busy grading final examinations to double check!

“Yeah, who knew Weiss really liked eating 'em?” Jaune joked. “Man, if she was here, Glynda's cupboard wouldn't be overflowing with these things.”

“Enough talk,” Ren admonished the two. “We can make fun of Weiss' dietary habits later. For now, we cook.”

Next to Glynda, Pyrrha gave an awkward smile as they watched the three get to work: Nora, like a bolt of lightning, zoomed from corner to corner, picking up Glynda’s dirty laundry. Jaune was picking up all the uneaten noodles and tubs of ice cream that were littered in Glynda’s living room, while Ren was rummaging through Glynda’s kitchen, rifling through the cupboards to find something, _anything_ that could resemble food to cook for dinner. The three moved with practiced ease, and Glynda knew that this wasn’t the first time that these three had done this before.

“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” Pyrrha asked, her voice lost to contemplation. “They don’t give you a choice, you know. As soon as they realized I was _horrible_ at cleaning or cooking, Jaune came up with a system to, and I quote, “take care of me”, and I will admit, domestic chores have been a bit of a weakness of mine, as I’ve spent my childhood training nonstop.”

“I’m surprised you’re letting them do this for you, instead of you trying to work on one of your weakness.” Glynda offered, watching as Nora somehow hoisted all the dirty laundry scattered in her living room and _forced_ the thing to fit into her one laundry hamper. “At the very least, it must have been a challenge to not try and do everything on your own, and you don’t strike me as the type to back down from the challenge.”

Pyrrha laughed, and Glynda wasn’t sure if it was from her comment, or the way that Jaune struggled with the tower of noodles that he was wrestling with. “This _has_ been a challenge, in a way. I will admit that I like bettering myself, but this is all new to me. It’s a strange feeling, not having to make the choices or to live up to expectations for once. It’s been a long time since I’ve let my hair down, and I think I’m starting to enjoy it. Wouldn’t you agree, Professor?”

Glynda looked down at her mismatched shows and her tracksuit, looked at Ren in the kitchen, who was doing something with her instant noodles, some meat he found in the refrigerator, as well as the tomatoes, looked at the mess in her living room, Nora slowly restoring a semblance of order and sanity to her living quarters, to Jaune collecting all of the noodles and other miscellaneous garbage and gathering all of it into a garbage bag before arranging Glynda’s groceries out on the dining table, to the pile of unwatched cartoons and movies that had piled up in front of the hologram projector in the living room, to Pyrrha Nikos, who was beaming at the entire scene like she was a child, and Glynda could only nod. _Yes, I can make a habit of this_.

\---0---

Ozpin, finally having satisfied his sweet tooth as well as his curiosity, motioned to get up from his seat, DumDum Pop in his mouth. He paused for a moment, looking at Glynda and the candy bowl, before he asked his last question.

“Are _you_ sure, Glynda? I…I need to hear you say it. We can always look for other candidates.”

There were many things that Glynda wanted to say at that moment: how Ozpin always talked about the power of _choosing,_ how he believed in giving his students the chance to choose for themselves, how he always made sure to ask _are you sure_ , how he would never force anyone to do anything against their wills, how the choices he ended up offering meant there was no choice at all anyway, how she had tricked herself into thinking _there really was no other choice but her_ , how they both knew _she_ would make the right choice, how much Glynda despised that she was _right_ all along…

Glynda found that her throat felt extremely dry, but she ignored it anyway and forced herself to nod and utter a small “yes.” Ozpin narrowed his eyes in response, the sorrow visible on his face.

“I’m truly sorry, Glynda. I should never have given you the choice. I should never have let yo-”

Most of all, Glynda wanted to ask both herself and Ozpin when they had gotten used to making these difficult choices for everyone else in Remnant.

“I’m sorry too, Ozpin. But I made my choice long ago. We can only live with the consequences of our decisions.”

Ozpin nodded and made his way out of Glynda’s room, the door gently closing behind him. Glynda, much to her surprise, didn’t feel much of anything – no anger, no regret, no sorrow – just an empty feeling in her gut. She didn’t even need to reach for the candy bowl to resist the cravings anymore.

\---0---

Glynda wasn’t sure what to make of the… concoction in front of her.

Ren (with Jaune’s assistance) had taken all of her instant noodles and just… cooked them all, but instead of just dousing the noodles with the condiments that came with each pack, Ren opted to try and make a red sauce instead. Glynda honestly didn’t know _how_ , but Ren made use of her meager cooking equipment (Glynda could count on her fingers the number of times she had even used the damned things) to cook up a rudimentary red meat sauce, topped off with the flavoring powder and seasoning oil, to go with her noodles. For once, Glynda was glad she had a surplus of tomatoes and cup noodles, because at least there was enough food for everyone to go around, even if Nora was determined to eat through the entire pile of food laid out for them.

The actual cooked food on the dinner table wasn’t the only surprise, though. For the first time in what felt like forever, the ruins of her apartment transformed into something that resembled a place human or faunus would choose to live in. Jaune had found her vacuum cleaner ( _another_ thing whose number of uses Glynda could count on her fingers) and made a thorough sweep of the living room and kitchen, although thankfully he avoided entering Glynda’s bedroom or toilet. Glynda would have melted from the embarrassment with that one.

For their part, Pyrrha had decided that it would be a good idea to help organize Glynda’s collection of unwatched movies and shows, and Glynda didn’t miss the way Pyrrha’s eyes would twinkle in recognition upon seeing more of her… esoteric material. Glynda had an inkling of Pyrrha’s interest in the material, having confiscated a lot of Blake Belladonna’s reading materials and Mistralian graphic novels, but it was still strange to see confirmation of Pyrrha’s interest in the subject matter.

The five had moved to the living room now, bowls and chopsticks in hand (Glynda begrudgingly taking out the fine ceramic bowls that had gone unused in one of the cupboards) as they huddled over one of the Mistralian cartoon holofilms being projected on screen. Glynda sat in the middle of her couch, more by force than by choice, as Nora set on the left armrest of her couch while Ren sat next to Nora, and on Glynda’s right, Pyrrha was seated while Jaune hovered over Pyrrha’s right shoulder as he leaned over the couch. Having settled themselves in for the night, Glynda decided to take the time to savor the instant noodles in red sauce (did this even _count_ as spaghetti? Questions for later, Glynda supposed), slurping the noodles rather loudly like she was wont to do when she ate at _A Simple Wok_ , before stopping herself as she noticed her students looking at her with befuddled expressions. Glynda felt her face redden at the attention.

Presumably noticing her embarassment, Nora piped up. “Aww, you don’t hafta worry about us, Glynda! Slurp away! Jaune does the same.” Nora chided, elbowing Jaune on his sides.

Jaune winced a little, trying not to choke on his own noodles as Nora prodded him on the sides. “It was _one_ time, Nora. And all I remember is you tried to burn through my stipend for the month.”

“It _was_ nice for our leader to treat us to noodles, even if it was because he lost a bet.” Pyrrha added, daintily putting the noodles in her mouth. On screen, Glynda noted, was a woman with pink hair, desperately trying to be a prince, fighting in an arena surrounded by moving cars. There were so many roses fluttering around in the wind that Glynda felt she was watching Miss Rose use her semblance.

“I still think my cooking is better,” Ren huffed, an uncharacteristic outburst from the young man. To be fair, Glynda thought, she wasn’t really trying to get to know her students very well, despite all the detention she had assigned them, and perhaps her initial judgment of them was not the best. “Speaking of – Professor, how is the food? I tried my best with what was available, but I’m afraid it was not as good as it could be.”

“It’s _fine_. No need to worry about me, Mr. Ren.” Glynda replied as she finished the last of the noodles in her bowl. “It is certainly up to par.”

“She’s only saying that because she’s like Pyrrha.” Nora shout-whispered to Ren, as if she genuinely thought that lowering the pitch of her voice meant Glynda wouldn’t hear it. Pyrrha and Jaune did their best to stifle their laughs as Glynda adjusted her glasses with her forefinger. Nora, oblivious, continued talking. “They wouldn’t know great cooking if it walked up to them and challenged them to a duel!”

“ _Ahem_. I can _hear_ you, Miss Valkyrie.”

Nora let out a small eep.

With their impromptu dinner finished, Ren gathered all of their bowls to wash in the kitchen while Pyrrha and Jaune rifled through Glynda’s collection of cartoons to pick something else to watch and Nora started digging through Glynda’s stash of candy. Glynda made a note to go on another grocery run before the weekend was over since Nora seemed intent on devouring her supplies for the week too.

“Oh, what about this?” Jaune suggested, pointing to a fairly old Mistralian cartoon, a classic adaptation of an old visual novel from the days when people still owned bulky personal holocomputers. “Blake keeps getting on my case to watch this.”

“Oh, that’s a good show to watch, yes.” Pyrrha replied, looking warmly. “The previous one… Blake and I tried to convince Ruby to watch it last semester, but Yang was adamant that Ruby was too young for it, so we compromised on this one. Ruby was reduced a blubbering mess at the end.”

“ _No_ way,” Nora chimed in. “How come we weren’t invited?”

“You were with Weiss and Ren, and Yang dragged Jaune off to do a food run.” Pyrrha offered.

“Well,” Jaune followed up, a confident grin on his face. “Ruby may have been reduced to tears, but _I’m_ made of sterner stuff. So let’s watch this. Oh, uh, if it’s okay with you, uh, Professor?” He hastily added, once he realized that they were leaving Glynda out of the conversation.

Glynda sighed before letting out a small smile. “Glynda is fine. We are off-campus anyway, and Miss Valkyrie here has already familiarized herself. And I don’t mind. I’ve been meaning to catch up on my shows anyway.”

“Yeah, this’ll be fun!” Nora exclaimed, to which Jaune nodded with another grin. “Oh, but before we begin, can we take a selfie?”

Jaune blanched at that. “I don’t think Gly- the Professor would want to have a selfie with us, Nora.”

“That is true. We _are_ still students of hers, after all, even if she has allowed us into her homes.” Pyrrha added.

To her surprise, Glynda contradicted the two. “Actually, I would not be opposed to one, as long as you don’t circulate the photos.”

Nora let out a squee while Jaune and Pyrrha looked at Glynda, shocked, before they gave up, shrugged, and smiled. Ren handed Nora her scroll (Glynda had long stopped asking why Ren was officially the caretaker of Nora’s scroll) and Nora immediately directed traffic, positioning everyone to get the ideal shot.

The photo ended up being a bit of a mess despite Pyrrha and Ren’s attempts. Nora had angled the scroll downward when she took the photo, and what emerged was Nora trying to hook Jaune and Pyrrha, who were both falling over from the sudden force of Nora pulling them over to her side with her right arm, with a bemused Ren leaning over Pyrrha’s shoulder. Off to the side, Glynda was keeping her distance, a wry smile on her face.

With the little debacle ended, Nora plopped down on the couch again and exclaimed: “I can’t wait to see what this one’s about! Ooh, are those _dumplings_? Is that a _dumpling family?_ ”

♫♫♫ _The friendly dumplings all hold hands and create a big round ring_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _They laugh together while making towns on the dumpling star_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _The rabbits wave from the big moon in the sky_ ♫♫♫  
♫♫♫ _It takes all the happy and sad things and rounds them up_ ♫♫♫  
  
Three hours later, Jaune was utterly _done_ , sobbing on the floor and muffling screams of despair as they watched the main character desperately hold onto his child. His tub of ice cream was left ignored on the coffee table an hour into the viewing, his face slowly melting from confident grin to ugly bawling as they watched the story of the main character meeting his future wife, to them forming a small family, to the struggles that they faced, culminating in the wife’s death in childbirth. The story, however, was unrelenting, as they followed the story of the character struggling and failing to raise his child alone, struggling against the crushing loneliness of having lost the love of his life, only to run into loneliness again as his child was diagnosed with the same disease that ended his wife’s life. Pyrrha was rubbing Jaune’s back and trying to soothe the distraught leader of team JNPR, to no avail, and Pyrrha was also holding back tears even if she had seen the show before.

“No! Nagisa…! Even Ushio too…!” Nora, meanwhile, wailed, in between shoveling spoonfuls of half-melted ice cream. She was on her fifth tub of Glynda’s stock of ice cream, and Ren had to run to the refrigerator every half hour to replace Nora’s stock, as the only thing stopping Nora from just outright bawling her eyes out in sadness was that she would pause to shovel ice cream in her mouth.

(Ren, meanwhile, was cheating and using his semblance to not cry, but Glynda didn’t begrudge him – it took all her willpower _not_ to cry in front of her students, too.)

“That can’t be it!” Nora continued to complain, watching the snow fall on the main character. “We can’t end the show on that note! That’s just _too sad_!”

“There _is_ another episode, Nora.” Pyrrha cooed, still rubbing Jaune’s back, although she would occasionally run her hands over Jaune’s messy mop of hair as well, as if trying to assure him that all would be fine through the language of headpats. “But I’m afraid it’s getting late.”

“Yes, I am afraid you may miss the air bus.” Glynda added, getting up from her seat. She didn’t realize how long she had been sitting, as her knees felt wobbly, and she swore it wasn’t because she had been holding back her tears all that time. “We can continue this on some other date.”

(They never did get to see the conclusion, where a miracle saved the main character’s wife from her death, but that was a story for another time.)

As Ren and Nora made their way outside the apartment, Nora bouncing all the way, Pyrrha and Jaune lingered behind to help Glynda clean up the mess in the living room. Glynda honestly didn’t know how to feel about the entire night, the fact that students stayed over, cooked her dinner, and helped her clean up the ruins that were her apartment, and she was struck with a strange sensation at the pit of her stomach, imagining what it would feel like, sitting in her empty apartment after her team had left, with nobody to talk to as she sat in silence. It was silences like that which made her pick up the smoking habit in the first place, after all.

“Thank you for allowing us into your home, Professor.” Pyrrha suddenly spoke, breaking her out of her reverie.

“Sorry about Nora being pushy, too.” Jaune followed, scratching the back of his head. “I know we said we wanted to help, but we may have gotten carried away.”

Glynda cast a glance over her apartment, which was now far more of a livable space than it did a few hours ago. She also recalled the dinner that the team had cooked for her – when was the last time she even did that? She’d lost count. “No need to thank me, Miss Nikos, Mr. Arc. You four were… not unwelcome deviations from my plans.”

“Just trying to check and see you don’t regret letting us in.” Jaune joked, grinning all the while. Perhaps it was just constant exposure, but Glynda was starting to see what Pyrrha saw in him, if he could look that content with everything despite all the work that he had been putting in during his stay in Beacon. Between managing his team, catching up with his academics, and the extra train- detention that Glynda was giving him and his team, Glynda realized that she had stopped caring, at some point, that Jaune forged his transcripts to get in. What did that matter when he was more dedicated to improving than most of his peers?

“Well, life’s too short to have regrets, especially over such silly things. I hope you enjoyed tonight as well, Professor.” Pyrrha giggled, moving towards the exist.

Jaune moved to follow, but Glynda stopped him with a tap on his shoulder. Glynda nodded at him, taking out her personal scroll, the one that had around three contacts saved and the one she only got to use around her apartment, as her work phone was the one that her organization contacted her with. She fiddled with it for a few seconds to bring up her personal details and motioned to Jaune, the leader visibly confused for a few more seconds until he realized what it was that Glynda wanted. He immediately unfurled his scroll and, with a few practiced swipes, they began exchanging contact details.

“In case of an emergency, Mr. Arc.” Glynda said as she watched Jaune’s contact details materialize on her scrolls. “I told you, you can come to us teachers at any time for help, and I figured this would be better than contacting me through my work scroll.”

“Oh. Uh… thanks?”

“Try not to send me unnecessary messages, however.” Glynda smirked, and she enjoyed the way Jaune’s face blanched in fear with the implications. Before he could rush to defend himself, however, Glynda shushed him. “In the future, I would like to not be surprised like this again. _Do_ warn me if your team are heading out into town on a weekend so I can try and make my place look more presentable.”

“I mean, we’re always ready to help…” Jaune began to respond, but Glynda cut him off again.

“Nevertheless, I have an image to uphold, as flimsy as it is around all of you at this point. Allow your teacher her dignity, will you?”

With that, Jaune smiled, nodded and left the room. Silence reigned in Glynda’s once-again empty apartment, but the traces of warmth left by the four lingered in the room, in the way her couch was slightly disheveled, to the hamper that somehow managed to contain three weeks’ worth of laundry, to the cleaner living room, to the kitchen that successfully found itself serving its original purpose of preparing food. Glynda smiled, absorbing as much of the remaining warmth as possible. This wasn’t bad at all, Glynda felt. It was much better than sitting in a cold, empty apartment, alone. She wouldn’t mind doing this again.

\---0---

With the memories of that first dinner jogging her memories, Glynda found the weight in her stomach lightening, somewhat. _Well, I can’t afford to feel sorry for myself,_ Glynda thought to herself. After all, she had a little dinner party to go to, a bi-weekly habit that she and her team had developed throughout the semester.

She sighed, surveying the room, from the posters that Nora had set up, to the little coffee and tea corner that Ren had arranged for her, giving her his suggestions for good coffee and tea for visitors, to the couches that Nora stress-tested and the tables that Jaune meticulously cleaned every time their team visited for detention, to the bookshelves whose books Pyrrha would survey if she had any spare time in between counselling sessions with Glynda or when Nora was the one being reprimanded, to the curtains that the team unanimously agreed fit Glynda best, to the boombox that Nora had procured from somewhere and had remained in Glynda’s office all this time… Glynda reached out to the machine, situated next to her desk, and on impulse, pressed play and closed her eyes.

As the music washed over her, the memories of the moment she chose to take them under her wing came flooding in from the recesses of her mind, overwriting her thoughts and reminding her of Pyrrha’s face, determined to prove her assessment wrong. Glynda recalled the moment that it _clicked_ , when she realized why Pyrrha was determined to stick with team JNPR, not just because she felt affection for one member but because she felt a deep, abiding love for _all of them_ , that Glynda realized just how much growing Pyrrha still needed to go through, how Beacon was her last, best hope to find something that she had lost all those years ago, something she had given up to pursue a dream she had chosen and a choice she had made. How the invincible girl wasn’t so _perfect_ after all, how she had a weakness for heel-based dance moves, how she desperately needed people to stand by her. How, before they were supposed to be the defenders of the people, they were still _kids_. How Glynda and the rest of Beacon were supposed to protect them until they were ready, to the best of their abilities. How Pyrrha _and_ Glynda had made their choices, and how they couldn’t afford to regret their decisions, since the lives they lead were too short for that.

With a _click_ , the song ended, and Glynda opened her eyes. Time for her to move.

\---0---

**iii. After the Fall**

“A… libation?” Glynda asked, incredulous.

Qrow took a swig of his flask, and Glynda did her best to ignore the smell of alcohol that permeated from Qrow’s flask. The smell _did not_ mix well with the musk of the books in the Vale City Library, which she was using as her base of operations, but really, what choice did she have in the wake of the Fall?

The Fall of Beacon was an unprecedented disaster – most of the school infrastructure had fallen, many students and teachers injured or presumed dead, Ozpin had disappeared into who knows where, _Pyrrha_ … but Glynda couldn’t afford to focus on the past. The attack by the White Fang, combined with the full-scale invasion of an ancient Grimm and a veritable horde of Grimm, had left Beacon and the Kingdom of Vale proper defenseless, and Glynda was the closest thing to a leader the survivors had left. She tried her best not to think of all that had been lost, like her office, with all the posters, and furniture, and paperwork, and the little trinkets and baubles that her students had brought in every now and then to add more life to her office. The Vale City Library, as historic and well-equipped as it was, simply could not compare to the warmth of her former place of work.

“Yeah, Glynda. A libation. The old Mistralians, like the ones from Argus, practiced it often.” Qrow finally offered as he finished his drink and began running his fingers through a shelf of books that he was examining. He stopped at a specific book, reading the spine, before deciding that he wasn’t interested in reading it. “You pour out alcohol for the departed. Honey or other sweet stuff works too. It’s this whole _thing_ about honoring the dead. I wouldn’t want to bore you with the specifics, but I figured you might want to try it out.”

“I’m shocked _you’re_ suggesting I waste perfectly good alcohol.” Glynda responded, and she cursed how her tone seemed so unnecessarily aggressive. Was she that angry? “Besides, I thought libations were linked to old Mistralian religious practices.”

“I told you I didn’t want to bore you with the specifics,” Qrow replied, evidently unbothered by Glynda’s tone. If he was, he did a good job of hiding it. “You look like shit, Glynda. You haven’t even mourned her, have you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Qrow.” Glynda uttered, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. She was seated in front of one of the library tables, trying to finish the recommendation letters that team CFVY had requested for their transfer to Shade Academy. After the Fall, students either fled Vale or tried to stick around to help in defense and reconstruction, but after a week or so, it became clear that Beacon would _not_ be reopening for classes, and for the huntresses-in-training who wanted to officially graduate, they had no choice but to seek education elsewhere. The visiting students from the different academies soon returned to their schools, and the Beacon students who did survive began looking for other schools to transfer to as well, or decided to just quietly vanish, disillusioned by the way even the mighty Beacon academy had fallen. That, combined with the lack of available Huntsmen around, made the defense of Vale a nightmare. Glynda was often run ragged by the constant Grimm excursions both from Beacon and outside the Kingdom walls that she didn’t have the aura to try and repair the damage to the city.

Unfortunately, Glynda was used to trying and failing to clean up messes. One could say it was a habit of hers.

There were teams that stuck around still, of course, like the remains of team JNPR. The three surviving members did the best they could, evacuating civilians into established safe zones or doing their best to hold back Grimm from breaching their perimeters, but they were just one team of many, and Glynda felt that it was unfair to keep forcing them to fight considering the great loss that they had suffered. Sure, she could admit to herself that she had a certain _affinity_ for them, but it wasn’t clouding her judgment, she believed. They were a team operating at less than optimal strength and needed to be treated accordingly.

“Stop dodging the question, Glynda.” Qrow pleaded, a rare look of concern on his face. “You haven’t slept in days, you look like crap, and you haven’t even touched the Invincible Girl’s weapons since I gave ‘em to you.”

Glynda felt her fists clench, her teeth gnashing against itself. She sent a glare Qrow’s way. “Her name is Pyrrha.”

“Yeah?” Qrow asked, unable to follow Glynda’s response.

“I _said_ ,” Glynda repeated, slowing down her sentence until she was almost spitting out every word, “…her name is _Pyrrha_. My student’s name is _Pyrrha Nikos_.”

Qrow lowered his eyes, looking at the flask in his hand to avoid meeting Glynda’s eyes. “…yeah. Sorry about that.”

The two remained silent for the next minute as Glynda finally finished drafting CFVY’s recommendation letter to Headmaster Theodore. In all honesty, Glynda didn’t care much for the man, and hoped that Xanthe, his right-hand woman, was surviving her excitable headmaster. She often felt a kinship with Xanthe Rumpole, honestly. But that was neither here nor there – she had just signed away another team goodbye. How many more students were going to leave Vale and Beacon to her?

Qrow seemed to finally be fed up with _something_ , as he threw his hands up in the air. “Look, take it from me – moping won’t achieve anything, and so is overworking yourself. Take a break. Give yourself some time to mour-”

“Just…just go.” Glynda forced out, her voice quivering. “I’ll keep your suggestions in mind. Go visit Ozpin’s charge… go visit Miss Rose.”

Glynda did her best not to look Qrow in the eye as the man swirled his flask around, staring at her as she arranged the paperwork on her makeshift desk. It was hard, adjusting to the Vale City Library as her new office. She sorely missed her office, especially her desk, which had started to feel more and more comfortable to her despite years of using the same desk. She also missed her candy bowl, missed the paperweight that JNPR decided to get her on a whim one day, missed the special ceramic cups she had custom made for herself and select students, missed the motivational cat posters and the one with Pyrrha encouraging her that they could do it, missed the couches that Nora stress-tested for her to ensure they could stand up to anything short of a Grimm attack, missed the coffee and tea selection that Ren had recommended for her, missed the curtains they had picked out, missed her bookshelves stacked with graphic novels that Pyrrha recommended, missed the books on sword and shield combat she had purchased and planned to gift to Jaune, missed every and any little thing that she had stored in her office in Beacon that, in the span of two semesters, had grown to be more of a home that she could have ever imagined.

Damn it, she missed them all, and she was finding it hard to let go of all she had lost.

Having finished writing the recommendation letters for CFVY, Glynda planned on spending the rest of the afternoon attempting to clean out the ruins of Vale, sector by sector. With her semblance, she had done much maintenance on Beacon, keeping the school standing despite the best efforts of its students to bring it to its knees. Vale was, for all intents and purposes, a larger Beacon, and Glynda was determined to shore up the ruins of Vale and try to restore as much as she could. She was the unofficial Custodian of Beacon, after all. Unfortunately, Glynda was never any good at fixing up ruins.

Still, she tried her best. The remaining teams and huntresses around Vale did their best to carve out safe spots and protect civilians from the Grimm still roaming in the city. It was slow work, reclaiming Vale one street or block at a time, and Glynda could not participate since she needed to conserve her Aura to try and fix up the buildings or shift rubble to look for survivors. Still, they were small victories, and it was all they could get right now in these trying times.

Even their largest scale operation, a plan to infiltrate Beacon to retrieve as many of Beacon’s supplies and find survivors, proved only a partial successs – Qrow managed to rescue Ruby and retrieve Pyrrha’s belongings, but Glynda was unable to access the teacher’s offices or any of the vital areas containing Beacon supplies such as Dust, food, weapons, among others. Still, Glynda deemed it a success, if only for retrieving Miss Rose, who Ozpin had placed much of his hopes on, as well as the remains of Pyrrha’s weapons in her hands. Speaking of, said weapons, Miló and Akoúo̱, felt heavy, like they were dipped into a pool of molasses and she was struggling to lift them from the liquid, and as she held the broken bits of the xiphos and the round shield, wrapping them in a red cloth sash for easier carrying, Glynda wondered if it ever got easier to live with just the small victories. It seemed like their life lately was a constant series of adjusting for the worst and finding wins where they could.

And wasn’t that the kicker? They had finally made the call to inform Pyrrha of their decision to choose her as their Fall Maiden of choice, had told her the story of the four seasons, and offered to her the choice to be what she always dreamed of being. None of them _liked_ it, of course, even Ironwood, who was always the most adamant about obtaining any form of power that would give them leverage against the Grimm and their secret master. But really, what choice _did_ they have? They needed to eke out some wins, however small they would be, because incidents like the Breach showed how vulnerable their peace was.

Glynda had wanted to reach out to Pyrrha, to offer help to her the way she offered Jaune and the rest of their team her assistance if they needed it, but she cursed her own inability to act, as well as her damned _guilt_. Because _she_ was the one who was initially the most gung-ho about recruiting Pyrrha into the fold, _she_ was the one who chose to try and take Pyrrha and her team under her wing, and _she_ was the one who told Ozpin that Pyrrha was, and still is, the best choice for the job, despite her misgivings. She had made her choice and now had to live with it. And if Pyrrha chose to distance themselves from her and the rest of their organization, and chose to seek refuge with her team instead of asking for _her_ help, what right did Glynda have but to respect her decision?

So she held her tongue and did nothing to help Pyrrha, stood by as Qrow, Ironwood and Ozpin explained the incredible burden they were placing on Pyrrha. In that moment, Glynda regretted how much she had learned under Ozpin’s tutelage.

“Glynda?”

Nora’s voice broke Glynda out of her reverie. She had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she failed to hear their arrival.

“Professor. Are you alright? Do you need us to step out for a moment?” Ren asked, the concern on his face visible. If it were a few months ago, Glynda would not have been able to notice it, but it was easy to read Ren’s emotions once you got to know him, despite the poker face that the teen had mastered. The trick was to focus on the cadence on his voice and the look in his eyes, as Ren tended to use rely on his semblance to calm himself down as opposed to processing it like most humans did. He never did learn how to center himself or allow his emotions to be processed in a constructive manner, and Glynda felt that it was too late for her to help now. She had been hoping on doing so for the next three years, but…

“I am fine, Ren.” Glynda said, with a weary sigh, as she deposited the makeshift cloth bag with Pyrrha’s weapons on her desk. “I’m not sure why you three are here when I gave you a few shifts to rest, but I’ve been meaning to call on you to give you this.”

Glynda nodded to Jaune, who immediately recognized the contents of the makeshift cloth bag, and the leader of the team moved to take it from Glynda’s desk. She willed herself to speak as Jaune approached the desk.

“I’m sorry. This is all I can give you for now.”

Jaune simply nodded, eyeing the broken remains of his partner’s weapons, wrapped up in the delicate red cloth sash. He took a step back and returned to his team, and Glynda found that she didn’t have the courage to say anything else.

“Are you sure you’re ok, Glynda?” Nora hazarded a guess, the concern in her voice evident, something that Glynda also learned how to read during the months that they had spent working together. Glynda had initially dismissed Nora as all brawn, and no brains, when she first saw the girl during initiation, even going as far to say that she and Ren would not make for a good partnership, but the Valkyrie seemed determined to prove Glynda wrong at every turn. From acing most of her exams during the first semester, to proving to be a savant in combat who could keep up even with Pyrrha Nikos, to a surprisingly adept mechanic who could keep up with Miss Rose when it came to weapon maintenance, to being the emotional center of her team, Nora had proved to be much more than Glynda could have ever accounted for, and she was glad that Nora was proving her wrong every single day. Despite her… Nora-ness, Glynda was starting to understand why Jaune allowed her so much free reign, since Nora never really meant to do anyone any harm with her antics – at least, as long as they never got on her bad side.

“I will be.” Glynda responded, willing her voice not to quiver. “What is it?”

Glynda said nothing about how the three looked ready to go on a journey, how they had their equipment ready to go and their travelling bags strapped to their backs, how Nora was fidgeting in that very specific way that Glynda knew meant she was explicitly ordered by Jaune to keep something secret, how Ren was sticking close to Nora to ensure she didn’t do anything reckless, how Jaune’s face hardened itself in the way that it did when Jaune finally, _finally_ shook off that nervous twitch and the fatal lack of confidence in himself and assumed leadership of the team.

Glynda’s heart went out to Jaune and to the rest of her team, as they were still reeling from the loss of their teammate but had no time to mourn as well, as they immediately sprang into action to help in the defense of Vale. Nora and Ren were hit hard by Pyrrha’s death, obviously, Nora losing a pep in her step and Ren restraining himself more than normal.

But it was Jaune that scared Glynda the most, especially in the way that his face seemed to harden and his voice softened, how he finally seemed to have gained that killer _edge_ that he lacked all those weeks and months ago. He had grown in ability, sure, even if Glynda knew he still had his deficiencies – but he had a direction to continue his training, and while Glynda would have wanted to continue focusing on his training, there simply wasn’t any time for her to guide him. But that didn’t seem to matter, because something _changed_ , from the way his posture shifted from slouching and nervousness to grim determination, from the way he seemed always on edge, observing every single thing around him and evaluating if they were a threat or an asset to be used in combat. Jaune always had that, the ability to think on the fly, even if it only emerged in times of extreme stress, which led Glynda to ask: what was happening to Jaune now? It was as if Pyrrha’s death finally awoke something in him, and he finally found something to focus on, and Glynda was not sure if these instincts would serve him well in combat or lead to his death. Probably both, if Glynda were to be honest.

“We’re heading to Patch.” Jaune finally said, and the Ren and Nora behind him nodded their assent. “Ruby… Ruby needs our help.”

Glynda’s heart sank at their announcement. She had always known that Ozpin had grand designs for Ruby, and Qrow most certainly was leading her in a specific direction – Haven, she supposed, although in the confusion of the Fall and Ozpin’s disappearance, she simply didn’t _have_ any information. Qrow was as tight-lipped as usual and James had retreated back to Atlas to avoid the international backlash of his army failing to defend Vale, so Glynda was left to guess at what Ozpin’s plans were – if he even had any. Ozpin had always been more of a reactor than a planner.

“Are you sure about this?” Glynda asked, squeezing her hands together. “You might be of more help here, helping in the recovery of Vale…”

“I suppose.” Jaune responded, all too quickly, and Glynda knew that they had made their choice long before this conversation. “But Ruby needs help. Blake ran away to who knows where, Weiss was taken away by her father, and Yang…”

“Ruby doesn’t have anyone else to help her.” Nora added, placing her hand on Jaune’s right shoulder to stop her leader from breaking down. Glynda could see the tears that were beginning to form in Jaune’s eyes as Jaune recounted what had happened to their sister team, who had fractured under the shadow of the Fall. Ozpin’s prized team, unfortunately, was divided and spread to different corners of Remnant.

“We, however, are still here. And we want to help our friend find answers.” Ren finished. “At the very least, we want to be there to support her.”

In many ways, Glynda felt, her job as Ozpin’s right-hand woman was to support him in all the ways that Ozpin needed support. Putting it mildly, she was there to clean up his messes, make sure to catch Ozpin if he fell, do the things that Ozpin could not do. If Ozpin’s role was to focus on the big picture of saving the world, Glynda’s role was to pick up his slack and watch out for the little things. That was why Ozpin entrusted the education of the students to Glynda, after all.

And if Ozpin _chose_ team RWBY as _his_ team, and Glynda chose team JNPR as _hers_ , was there any surprise that her team would be rushing to help their sister team out? Was there any wonder they were rushing to clean up the ruins of team RWBY? They tended to make a habit of cleaning up seemingly irreversible messes, after all. They would make for good custodians, Glynda thought with a wry smile. _Of all the things to inherit from me…_

“We decided on this as a team. It was our choice.” Jaune said, after a moment of silence. “We _want_ to do this. Pyrrha… Pyrrha said she believed in destiny, and I think I finally understand what she means.”

In the old Mistralian tongues, especially those around the place that would eventually be known as Argus, _destiny_ held an important nuance that differentiated itself from the word _fate_. In the old Mistralian tongues, one _pursued_ their destiny, followed it to the bitter end. And who did she know who believed strongly in destiny, with as few regrets as possible?

There was one regret Glynda held, however. Glynda cursed the fact that Qrow knew more than her, that she always insisted on distancing herself from the specifics of Ozpin’s planning. This was why she always insisted on separating her personal life from her work life. For a fleeting moment, Glynda considered telling them all she knew, reveal to them all the secrets she had access to, but now, at the moment that she wanted to give her students as much information as possible to help them, she realized just how little she knew, and the little she had was useless to their cause. She would simply be distracting them from what they had already decided to do. She could only hope that Qrow had all the answers, and that he would be willing to share them.

So she held her tongue and, and instead made a plea.

“Promise me you'll come back, won't you?” Glynda finally said, willing the emotions in her heart to cease. “I'll make sure you have a home to come back to.”

For a moment, the three remained silent, unsure of what to answer. After all, the journey was perilous, and there were no assurances that they would find any answers at the end of the road to Haven. However, Glynda held her tongue, aware that nothing she could say would dissuade the three from their decision. They had learned far too much from Pyrrha to turn back now.

Finally, with much effort, Jaune looked at her, the tears on his face now drying. “Don't worry. We will.”

Nora followed up. “Team JNPR never goes back on its word.”

Finally, Ren added. “She would have wanted the same.”

 _This isn't how things were supposed to happen!_ Glynda wanted to scream at the skies, but unfortunately, she had an image she had to uphold.

Instead, she returned to her work, Qrow’s words ringing in her head. _Her_ students were trying to move on and do _something_. What kind of teacher would she be if she simply let her students outshine her?

And so, Glynda Goodwitch began to think about libations.

\---0---

It had taken a lot of practice, but Glynda had finally managed to clean up her apartment on her own.

It was difficult work, at first: Glynda’s problem was always that she allowed the mess to pile up, allowed things to deteriorate to the point that she would be overwhelmed by the mess that she had made. JNPR’s help simply amounted to extra hands to do the work of cleaning up the ruins of her apartment, but the lesson they had imparted was the same: to clean something, you needed to take things one step at a time. A dirty apartment always _felt_ like a daunting task to clean, but someone still needs to do it. So you rolled up your sleeves, sighed, and chipped away at the work until it was done.

It took a lot of weeks to get used to it. JNPR visited multiple times in the intervening weeks to help when Glynda felt overwhelmed. Glynda always found it amusing, suspecting that they did the same to Pyrrha, drilling in the habit of cleaning up as soon as she could instead of allowing things to pile up. Bit by bit, one day at a time, the change was noticeable, and Glynda eventually found herself staring at a clean, well-kept apartment.

And if she could learn to clean her own apartment, fix up the ruins and the mess she had made of this small space, who was to say she couldn’t do it elsewhere? Vale and Beacon didn’t seem as big anymore. It may be slow work, and her Aura may run out along the way, but if she had to take back Vale sector by sector, block by block, street by street, she would do so.

She moved to the kitchen, where her remaining candy was on the table. She had hoped to give it to her students, seeing as it was all their favorites, but now that they were leaving on a long journey, there really was no point to holding on to it. Glynda figured she may as well make use of them _somehow_.

Libation was, according to the old Mistralian customs, simple: you poured out alcohol on the ground to honor the dead. Glynda did her best to ignore how complex the actual act was, how it wasn’t _really_ just a ritual to honor the dead, that there was religious significance to it and important symbolic power in the way one offered wine to the gods, how you were meant to do this or that… because what mattered was the act and the intent. It was just a small act, a small step, something that meant little in the grand scheme of things. But Glynda knew better by now. Habits were formed or broken through the little things done repeatedly. If Glynda was to move on, to accept that Pyrrha Nikos was gone, she would have to take things slowly, do things one step at a time. If libation could help her do so, then so be it.

Glynda didn’t _have_ alcohol, but according to the customs, honey was a perfectly fine substitute. Well, she didn’t have honey, either, and in the wake of the Fall, luxury items like this were in short supply. All she had was candy and chocolate, and for now, that would do.

So she took the DumDum Pops and the Munch Bars and the Sour Patch Grimm and the Matcha chocolate, and she climbed up to the roofs of her apartment, overlooking the city of Vale, and she gazed out to the ruins of Beacon, staring at the CCT tower with the Grimm Wyvern encased in stone, the last known place where Pyrrha Nikos was before her death, and with a great outpouring of Aura that emerged from the depths of her soul, Glynda _flung_ all of her candy, all of the DumDum Pops and the Munch Bars and the Sour Patch Grimm and the Matcha chocolate that she still had, and she used her Telekinesis to will all of her candy into the air, flinging them outwards towards the direction of Beacon. Gravity would get to them eventually, gravity would force them to the ground, and they would be consumed by the earth, or by Grimm, or whatever else was out there, but they were now _of the earth_ , now returning to dust and ash, from whence they all came. Glynda was not much of a religious person, but she thought it fitting to utter a prayer: a prayer for the fall of Beacon, a prayer for all they have lost and all they have yet to lose, a prayer for all who have died and gave up their lives for the defense of the Kingdom and the School. Glynda watched as all her candy disappeared into the distance, her Telekinesis finally loosening its hold on all of it. They were out of her grasp now, and she hoped that wherever they landed, they would find peace.

For her libation, Glynda poured out her heart and soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chonker. Might take a break from releasing stuff because I’m really behind on my Gilfest grinding. Sorry!


End file.
